…you tell me. The Defending Timon post was pretty enlightening, actually.  I thought about doing a whole series and tackling all the, what shall we call them, less popular plays?  Pericles, Cymbeline, etc… Instead let’s do it this way.  What play do you think doesn’t get enough credit, and why?  Plead your case. I will be disappointed if Measure for Measure and Two Gents don’t come up.

New Feature!  For those folks who can’t live without their daily dose of Shakespeare Geek, and aren’t quite down with the “RSS feeds”, I present the Shakespeare Geek Mobile Edition.  It’s a simple stripped down version of the most recent headlines, with story summaries. Bookmark this one on your smartphone and you’ll be able to check for new stories quickly without waiting for all those sidebar widgets to load.  Clicking on a story headline will take you back to the regular full-size side for the rest of the content (which is why I’m not doing an “automatically redirect mobile devices to the mobile site” trick).  Enjoy!

While listening to my podcasts over lunch, somebody mentioned the word "radio”.  It’s an interesting time for that word.  How long will radio as we know it continue to function, in a world of downloading and streaming content?  Already you can see that many radio station DJs have been removed, replaced by automated playlists. My parents are from the generation where you were lucky (and rich) if you had a television.  Radio was your entertainment.  My dad will still seek out and listen to the “old time radio” shows where you gathered around the radio at a specific time on a specific day to listen to content you couldn’t get anywhere else.  Content only for your ears, and your imagination. Which brings me to my question.  It’s often said that Shakespeare’s fans would not have gone to “see” a play, as we might say today – they went to “hear” the play.  So what if Shakespeare was a radio drama?  Would it work? Imagine hearing just the first act (or maybe just some scenes) from Macbeth.  And then being told to tune in next week.  What would your imagination do with that? There’s really two parts to this question, feel free to answer either one.  The first is could it have worked back then, just like any other radio drama?  I’m half expecting that somebody can tell me a story of when this was, in fact, tried, and what the results were.  The second half is, could it work today?  If you found out right now that tomorrow night at 8pm, a local radio station was going to start broadcasting your favorite Shakespeare play, would you make time to listen? Rules: * You don’t get to know anything about the production that would help you visualize it in any specific way.  The entire effect is ruined if the radio show is just an audio broadcast of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1999 performance of so and so.  This has to be all about your attention span, your ears, and your imagination. * You don’t get any recording equipment.  You can’t say “I’d Tivo it and then listen later, at my leisure, with the ability to go back and play certain parts over to analyze them.”  This being a live performance is part of the question.  You’re going to only get one shot, you’d better pay attention. I deliberately put in rule #2 because I think that without that, even for me, the answer is fairly obvious – tape it and listen later.  It’s hard for us now to *not* think of it that way.  But that’s part of the fun.

Thanks to long-time reader Angela for the link! The Royal Shakespeare Company today announces its plans to reopen the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres on time and on budget in November 2010, following a four year redevelopment as part of the £112.8 million Transformation project designed to bring actors and audiences closer together. The Company will reopen its doors to the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres from 24 November 2010, inviting people in to rediscover and explore the building, which will have a brand new 1,000 seat thrust stage auditorium, 36 metre high Tower, new exhibition spaces, new places to eat and drink, including Rooftop Restaurant and Riverside Café and terrace, restored 1930s features and improved public areas including the new Weston Square. Visitors will be able to take part in a series of preview events and activities which will help test the spaces, while throughout the opening period Matilda, A Musical plays at The Courtyard Theatre. Read more: http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/RSC_to_Reopen_Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_1124_20100901#ixzz0yID8GnB3

Life is what happens when you’re busy making blog posts.

Hi Geeks, I like to do one of these every few months (though I’ve never called it this) just to play catch up a bit when it seems like I’m falling behind.  I’m pleased to see the amount of conversation that’s going on in some of the latest posts, and saddened that I’m not able to be a part of that conversation as much as I’d like. My book is coming along nicely, first of all.  It’s content-complete and has now been to the editor twice.  Next comes formatting for publication, and going through everything that goes with that (cover design, registering copyright, getting an ISBN, getting into Amazon, all that good stuff).  Of course I’m learning this stuff on my own as I go, so it’s hard to tell from day to day when I’m going to glide over the latest obstacles and when I’m going to meet insurmountable ones.  But this thing will get done, I promise that. Part of that release will also involve a new web site, which is at least something I do know a little bit about :).  It will not in any way replace Shakespeare Geek.  The new site will just be one of those what we call “microsites” for the whole purpose of giving the marketing traffic a place to land.  But it still needs to be functional and look pretty, and that takes time. As that draws to a close I’m looking to ramp up on another project I’ve had on the backburner for awhile, something that requires more of my programming skills. I’ve been building up my own Shakespeare knowledge base that I plan to unleash on the world Real Soon Now. I know exactly how I want it to work, I’ve just got to plug in the social aspects.  The idea is to be a question answering site, and I want to experts who spend their time answering questions to get some recognition for their contribution, build up some cred. I’ve also got two books on my shelf waiting to be reviewed, with a third on the way.  There’s also something supposed to be coming, not really a book, more of a toy, that I’m told I’ll actually get to giveaway.  But I have no idea when that’s going to show up. Then of course there’s the day job.  It’s new and it’s work from home, which makes it difficult to properly judge time.  I need to make sure that I’m spending the right amount of time doing my “real” work, which tends to make the Shakespeare stuff suffer since every time I work on the Shakespeare I have to ask myself, “Did I work enough on my day job stuff?” and often the answer is, “Wellll……no, I suppose I could do more.” Of course it doesn’t help (me, at least) that the Shakespeare blogging world seems to have taken off a bit, and for every post I make I could probably find a dozen to link from the various other blogs that have crept up on me.  Not only do I not have the cycles to properly do that justice (I don’t like to just link without having at least some comment, which implies reading and appreciating what I’m linking), but it is a bit of a downer for me to sometimes feel a bit left in the dust if I don’t keep the pace up. Meanwhile I’ve noticed that the conversation has often been drifting into that dreaded TL;DR zone that JM loves so much :).  Mark and Ren, I know that you’re relatively new here and no offense is intended when I say this, but half the time I don’t understand at all what you’re talking about.  I’m pleased to provide the forum for you to have these discussions, because I know there are others who want to have them.  But don’t be offended when I can’t join.  I’m not a student of this stuff.  By nature of this medium I find myself more in the literary school than the theatrical one (i.e. I write about it far more than I’ll ever speak or hear about it).  So when you compare notes about directors and performance choices, I don’t have much to offer.  Don’t let that stop you, though. School starts up over the next couple weeks, which may make the days a little bit more structured and peaceful, so perhaps things will change a bit.  Until then, think of me as the Coffee Talk lady from Saturday Night Live (assuming people still understand what the heck that reference means, see YouTube video):

I’ll give you a topic. Catcher in the Rye neither caught anything, nor was he particularly wry.  Discuss.

That was a joke, by the way.  We’ve already discussed. All right, that’s it for me for now.  Thanks for listening and buying stuff,  keep reading and posting, and stay tuned for a couple of exciting new projects coming soon!   – Duane