Ostriches, whiskey, and pop

Plus: Henry V at MIT

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Henry V at MIT

If you will be in Boston this week² for the Shakespeare Association of America conference come to this Henry V I directed at MIT. The eight-strong student ensemble is brilliant and the production is under an hour (!)³

Quick Links

• An acrobatic Macbeth at the Globe.⁴

• Women playing men’s roles in Ukraine.

  “We were rehearsing Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ when suddenly our men were taken to the front…We only had the female part of the troupe left. So we thought, ‘Well, if men played women in Shakespeare’s times, why not give it a try?’”

• “Is styling Queen Isabel with series regular Zoe Winters’s signature bangs a step too far? Yes!”

• A pop-powered musical Macbeth is in the works.

• Look, I maintain this corner of internet so I *don’t* have to read this man’s takes.

• Rockabye Hamlet, Something Rockin’ in Denmark, and Kronborg: 1582 are the same famous flop.

• Othello beat Potter as the highest-ever grossing play on Broadway.

  “…the subject is clearly a sensitive one — after the New York Post entertainment critic Johnny Oleksinski wrote a column referring to the “Othello” prices as “obscene” and based on “greed,” the production declined to accommodate his request for free press seats.”⁵

• No horses allowed on the Isle of Tyrants.

• The Shakespeare-spinoff industry in DC.

  “Before entering the black box theater, patrons had to choose between the House of York and the House of Lancaster. Each individual is branded accordingly (with a sticker or temporary tattoo) with the white or red rose that symbolizes their allegiance and then is made to sit on segregated sides of the audience.”

• The role of the Tennessee Shakespeare Company in one family’s life.

• John Kani & Drew Lichtenberg on Kunene and the King.

• A sound studio Measure for Measure.

• “Shakespeare elevated this behavior into a threat with Henry VI: ‘I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich.’”

• Sonnet V re-translated from the German.

• David Oyelowo’s Coriolanus is haunted by a National Theatre mascot.

• F. Murray Abraham on Helen Vendler and the sonnets.

• Historians at the Movies does “Shakespeare in Love”

• Antoni Cimolino on casting Richard III and balancing chaos and order.⁶

• “Young Siward [an 18-year-old whisky]”

• A podcast with the Grand Theft Hamlet creators.

• “According to Open Corporates, over 800 active U.S. businesses feature Shakespeare’s name.”

• Derek Jacobi talks Shakespeare.

• A lecture on Shakespeare’s Rome.

• I think I need to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail with subtitles.

• A deep dive on lights for the RSC’s Twelfth Night.

• Liza Blake on “Queer(er) Editing” (skip 34 minutes in for Much Ado)

Vintage Links

• Robert Sean Leonard and Claire Danes as Lysander and Hermia.

• Richard Roxburgh and Cate Blanchett as Hamlet and Ophelia.

• “The snake fell out of my wig as I did my bow.”

• Listen to Orson Welles as Brutus.⁷

• That time Peter Sellars briefly ran an American National Theater.

• Growly McFurryPaws at the Guthrie. (h/t Sara Becker)

Recommendations

• The Swiss are mashing up The Birds.

• Conserving a hat.

• Bear v. possum, childhood edition.

• These hanging lockers from the abandoned Bethlehem Steel Plant.

• “WANTED. To correspond with a heavy-weight boxer, with a view to business (private)”

• A Willy Loman focus group.

1. Like this one.

2. It has been an adventure.

3. Yes, I *did* cut the Salic Law speech. (I am constant as the Northern Star.) Also the entire tavern plot. And added a ghost. Come see.

4. Shades of this Pilobolus Caliban.

5. He went on to pan the play before its opening.

6. “How often will you cast a dangerous actor?”

7. Add this to the list of “Shakespeare plays where an actor was actually stabbed.”