Here’s an interesting find. An online version of Beerbohm Tree’s 1904 The Tempest, including all his edits to the text, cast list and so forth. I’ve got to sit down and read this, I’m intrigued. Does anybody know details about this particular version, and why somebody might have gone to the trouble of preserving it like this?

Popeater has a funny collection of pop songs as spoken word pieces, like that time Jude Law read Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” on one of the late night talk shows.
Not much Shakespeare, but it’s Sunday and I’m linking it because it’s amusing – and because the book critic doing Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” does bring in a King Lear reference :).

“I thought I knew what ‘try to touch my junk, junk’ meant. A junk is a boat. So, you know, she could be in China.”

So today I was hanging out watching one of the many King Arthur movies, and a question dawned. Surely this story is far older than Shakespeare. Would Shakespeare have known this story? Do we have any idea why he chose not to tell it? I realize that there were many stories to retell and obviously he couldn’t retell them all, just curious whether this one was significant back then and there was a reason why he never put his spin on it.

Here’s a fun new feature for everybody. You may recognize Alexi as one of our most frequent commenters here on ‘geek. Well, Alexi also happens to be directing The Scottish Play coming up, and we had an idea for a feature called (obviously), Ask A Director. What sorts of questions do you have for Alexi? I know I’d like to get the inevitable curse question out of the way by asking whether there was any particular bouts of bad luck on his set? Any injuries?
What else would you like to know? No boundaries, though of course Alexi’s not required to answer, either :). Let’s try to keep questions to the subject of directing this particular show, if at all possible – we’ve all got plenty of opportunities to voice our opinions on general issues of the day in other posts.
Who’s got a good question?
Ambition. Deception. Guilt. Madness. Shakespeare’s most harrowing tragedy has it all. See a twelve-person cast bring the rise and fall of Macbeth and his Lady to life in this innovative production.

The ShakesPEER Group is a not-for-profit student-run theatre group. Previous productions have included Othello, Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and The Importance of Being Earnest.
The production’s Facebook page can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141404825902112
View a trailer on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEAuQ1RJTiU

Fresh topic, spinning off the Gnomeo related discussions re: the Disnefication of Shakespeare.
I think we all generally agree that we’d like to see more acceptance, familiarity and understanding of Shakespeare in the world around us. We don’t want to hear that he’s hard, or boring, or complex, or irrelevant. We want our kids to approach the subject in school with excitement, not fear. We want to spot a Shakespeare reference in the wild and discover to our great joy that we’re not the only person in the room that understood it. 🙂 Fair enough? Any of those statements untrue?

Ok, next question. Why don’t we have this, and where should we focus our attention in order to fix it? I’m referring here to actual people – you can’t fix a system or an infrastructure unless you can communicate with the people who made it that way in the first place.
I figure there’s at least three logical places to start:
1) Education. I’d say “teachers”, but I don’t think that’s enough – I think many are probably constrained by curriculum requirements, standardized testing, out of date text books, stuff like that. So I’ll make this the broad category of “people who are charged with educating our children.” (NOTE, since I know I’ve got plenty of teachers reading!! I am not intending to suggest that every teacher everywhere is doing it wrong. Hardly. I’m saying, and I hope we’re in general agreement, that there is often an overall attitude toward how and when Shakespeare should be taught, that is perhaps out of date and in need of some overhaul.)
2) Parents. My kids are growing up on Shakespeare because I love it. But what about all the kids out there whose parents hated Shakespeare, and thus have no interest in instilling a love of the subject in their kids? Can we approach them, and enlighten them regarding what they missed? If we’re assuming that Shakespearean education has been somewhat broken for a very long time, we can’t hold it against the parents that they hated Shakespeare in school. We can, however, attempt to fix it.
3) The kids. “Blame” is not the right word here, but it’s a place to start. If you weren’t hanging out on this blog, when would you think to expose kids to Shakespeare? High school? Maybe middle school? Why is that, exactly, because you just trust the educational system and that’s the way it’s done? Why not elementary school? As we address a younger audience we continue to simplify, focusing more on the story and the action and less on the words. So how far back can you take that? Couldn’t I read The Tempest to my 2yr old as a bed time story? What’s the difference between that and Cinderella? If we start by assuming that there are certain kids who simply should not be exposed to Shakespeare, I think we’re doing them a disservice.
There’s no right answer – the only right answer is, obviously, “start everywhere.” What I’m looking for is the chink in the proverbial armor (so to speak). The place where, if we focused enough energy, we’d break through and cause some real change.