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The Bill / Shakespeare Project

The Bill / Shakespeare Project

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poetry

  • Venus and Adonis
  • Lucrece
  • The Sonnets
  • A Lover’s Complaint

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Russell Russell
hot, good-looking people: gonna post a re-face vid hot, good-looking people: gonna post a re-face video!
me: gonna replace my face with clouds on my sonnet video!

#Repost @fmshakes1
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Sonnet 25 
Let those who are in favor with their stars,
Of public honor and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlook'd for joy in that I honor most.
Great princes' favorites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye;
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for worth,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honor razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
 Then happy I, that love and am beloved
  Where I may not remove nor be removed.

performed by actor and director Bill Walthall

follow FireMuse Shakespeare at fmshakes1.com and @fmshakes1 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

follow Bill Walthall at @billwalthall on Instagram, @walthall on Twitter, and  BillWalthall.com

full video at
https://youtu.be/yGDTUDzYL6g
Tomorrow's video for the @fmshakes1 sonnet project Tomorrow's video for the @fmshakes1 sonnet project...
digging the Branagh Henry V Prologue vibe of of to digging the Branagh Henry V Prologue vibe of of today's FireMuse Shakespeare sonnet project contribution by @aldanwasman

#Repost @fmshakes1
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Sonnet 22 
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
 Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;
 Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.

performed by actor and director Alan Waserman

follow FireMuse Shakespeare at fmshakes1.com and @fmshakes1 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
Totally dig today's sonnet film, by the talented @ Totally dig today's sonnet film, by the talented @_theartistkid_ 

#Repost @fmshakes1
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Sonnet 21
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
 Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
 I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

performed by actress and artist Kailey Claycamp

follow FireMuse Shakespeare at fmshakes1.com and @fmshakes1 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

follow Kailey at @_TheArtistKid_ on Instagram
#Repost @fmshakes1 • • • • • • Dear Ra #Repost @fmshakes1
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Dear Raul R.:
I see you filled out the form to participate in the Sonnet Project, but you email address beginning with "rightraul" bounced back as non-existent... please message me so I can get you your sonnet!
Love this sonnet reading by my stage daughter from Love this sonnet reading by my stage daughter from #ETCToGillian @panicversuseuphoria ...
Message me for more info! #Repost @fmshakes1 • Message me for more info! 

#Repost @fmshakes1
• • • • • •
Still looking for some test readers before moving forward on this project later this year!
Here's my baby, the lovely @lisawalthall reading a Here's my baby, the lovely @lisawalthall reading a sonnet... thanks, baby... love you! 

#Repost @fmshakes1
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Sonnet 15 
When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
 And all in war with Time for love of you,
 As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

performed by Kindergarten teacher Lisa Walthall

follow FireMuse Shakespeare at fmshakes1.com and @fmshakes1 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

full video at
https://youtu.be/NHU_KjXtk_4
Let's do this! 

#Repost @fmshakes1
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OK, with the first month of the year-long sonnet project under our belts, it's now time to look forward to the next phase of FireMuse Shakespeare...
7-Player Cymbeline!
After last year's test-read of the first version of the script, I've made some changes, beefed up the Stage Manager and added more interactivity with the audience. But before we go casting and performing the damn thing, I think it best to do one more reading of the script in a controlled situation.
If you'd like to be involved (distance is no object in this reading... this will be Zoom-ified), message me through Instagram, or at the website, fmshakes1.com.
A reminder of the cast/characters:
CHARACTERS (3 m; 2 f; 3 either)
PLAYER 1: Imogen (daughter to Cymbeline); a Briton soldier/jailer (she)
PLAYER 2: Posthumus (husband to Imogen); Cloten (son to the present queen); Cornelius/ia (a physician in Cymbeline’s court); a royal attendant; a Roman captain (he)
PLAYER 3: Cymbeline (King of Britain); Cloten's attendant lord; another royal attendant (he)
PLAYER 4: Pisanio/ia (Posthumus’s servant); Philario/ia (Posthumus’s host in Rome); the ghost of one of Posthumus’s brothers; another Roman captain; a gentleman of the court/Briton lord (they)
PLAYER 5: Iachimo (friend to Philario); Guiderius/ia (child of Cymbeline by his former queen--living in the woods under the name of Polydor); Sicilius (the ghost of Posthumus’s father); a Briton soldier/captain; a messenger (he)
PLAYER 6: Cymbeline’s Queen; Belarius/ia (an exiled noble person--under the name of Morgan); the ghost of Posthumus’s mother; Philarmonus/a (a Roman soothsayer) (she)
PLAYER 7: Caius Lucius/ia (a Roman general); Arviragus/ia (child of Cymbeline by his former queen--living in the woods under the name of Cadwal); the ghost of another of Posthumus’s brothers; another gentleman of Cymbeline's court (they)
STAGE MANAGER: ...oh, and the god Jupiter (they)

Let's do this!
I was going for a "Rosebud" homage near the beginn I was going for a "Rosebud" homage near the beginning of this. What I got was "note to self: never film yourself in that tight a closeup again..."

#Repost @fmshakes1
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Sonnet 13 
O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
 O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
 You had a father: let your son say so.

performed by by director and actor Bill Walthall

follow FireMuse Shakespeare at fmshakes1.com and @fmshakes1 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

follow Bill Walthall at billwalthall.com, as well as @billwalthall on Instagram 

full video at
https://youtu.be/BKay-lR2X10
And today's "Most ironic headline on YouTube" goes And today's "Most ironic headline on YouTube" goes to...
Mood Mood
This warns my heart on a cold wet Thursday! This warns my heart on a cold wet Thursday!
I absolutely love @samanthafishmusic and can't wai I absolutely love @samanthafishmusic and can't wait for Friday! 
#Repost @samanthafishmusic
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🎂🎉🎥 Please join us this Friday 1/29 at NOON CT for Samantha Fish live on Facebook! Got any requests? Help us celebrate Samantha‘s birthday with this free stream on Samantha’s Facebook page. All donations will benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans! 🙌🏼💙 no-hunger.org @2ndharvestgnoa SPREAD THE WORD! #SamanthaFishFriday
I've got some incredibly talented former students. I've got some incredibly talented former students... thanks to Robin DuMont for contributing to the @fmshakes1 sonnet project!
Loving this #inauguration celebration... Loving this #inauguration celebration...
I'm loving all the submissions thus far, but this I'm loving all the submissions thus far, but this one--so wonderfully subversive by @jessi_may_stevenson --is too good not to share

#Repost @fmshakes1
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Sonnet 8
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
 Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
 Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'

a film by director and actress Jessi May Stevenson

follow FireMuse Shakespeare at fmshakes1.com and @fmshakes1 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

follow Jessi May Stevenson at jessi_may_stevenson on Instagram

full video at
https://youtu.be/izUWsidULcA
FireMuse Shakespeare ends the second week of the s FireMuse Shakespeare ends the second week of the sonnet project with another fantastic entry..
This one by @sindymck which follows great contributions by @livbug_21 and @thespianqueen earlier this week... totally pumped by this project! 

#Repost @fmshakes1
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Sonnet 6
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
 Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
  To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

performed by playwright and actress Sindy McKay @sindymck 

follow FireMuse Shakespeare at fmshakes1.com and @fmshakes1 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

[MUSIC: Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises Father and Son (Instrumental Version) · Steve Petrunak Instrumental Guitar Tribute to Cat Stevens ℗ 2014 Graceful Living Music Released on: 2014-12-12 Music Publisher: Cat Music Ltd Auto-generated by YouTube.]

full video at 
https://youtu.be/2whsEAkM_Vo
An email from the @folgerlibrary ... it was like t An email from the @folgerlibrary ... it was like they crafted the most perfect click-bait subject line for me...
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