Straight from longtime Shakespeare Geek contributor David Blixt comes the disappointing (and highly surprising) news that his beloved Michigan Shakespeare Festival has fallen on hard financial times:

The Michigan Shakespeare Festival has issued an urgent plea for aid from its friends and donors as a result of an unexpected shortfall in financial support from several key sources. The call came from Bart Williams, managing director, who described the crisis. “With so much momentum going into this coming season, it is distressing now find several funding sources we had counted on did not come through.” Williams described the budget shortfall as in the “mid five figures,” and that emergency measures were needed to fill this gap within the next few weeks. Without additional funds, the season might be shortened or cancelled altogether.

This is no struggling group trying to keep their head about water.  The MSF has been alive and thriving for quite some time, and boasts the likes of Shakespearean gods like Dame Judi Dench and Stacey Keach among  those who have endorsed their work.

Please check out the links and help spread the word.  Thanks!

So this story is only vaguely related to Shakespeare, but anybody that knows me will appreciate it.

See if you can follow this.  I have a “work wife”.  This woman and I had worked closely on a team of just three people and it didn’t take long for the usual workplace flirting to get kicked high enough into the stratosphere that everybody just started referring to us as a work couple.  No biggie.  I’m married, she’s not, my wife knows about my work wife.  It’s fun.  Work wife meanwhile has started dating one of the new employees.

Yesterday, out of the blue, one of my coworkers forwards me an event notification for a Shakespeare Open Mic night.  She apparently missed that it happened a month ago.  The particular event was at a cafe in Salem, MA, for Shakespeare’s Birthday (I’ve been to it).  I appreciate the notification.  Like I’ve said before, I like that people spot Shakespeare things and send them to me.

Anyway, this new employee, who is dating my work wife, suddenly pops his head over the wall and says, “Wait, what’s this you’re talking about?  Really?  That sounds cool.”

I try to decide if I’m being mocked.  He assures me that no, he’s into Shakespeare.  He’s one of those “really didn’t like it in high school until I finally got a teacher that showed us how awesome he is” kids. Now he wants to talk about Shakespeare and asks about where in town he can see a good show.

I give him my usual warning – “You sure you want to open this door?  You’ve heard what happens when you start me talking about Shakespeare, right?”

At this point along comes work wife to see why the two men in her life are chatting.  I let her know that yes, we’re talking about Shakespeare, and I’m not giving him back.  He’s mine now.
We start talking about the obvious option, Commonwealth Shakespeare in the Park (doing Coriolanus this year).  I tell him that I go every year, we make a picnic out of it, get some PF Changs, couple bottles of wine, hang out on a nice summer night.  He decides that now it sounds even more convincing.

I came home and told my real wife that this summer we’re double dating. 🙂  How’s that for awkward?  Maybe my real wife and my work wife can hang out and chat while I talk Shakespeare with my work wife’s boyfriend. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂