http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kevinsprague/imagining-shakespeare I’ve never had a chance to see “Shakespeare & Company” out in Lenox, MA.  Recent stories of their financial difficulty have made me wonder if I’ll ever get the chance. So it is with great optimism that I link this project by Kevin Sprague, who has compiled a book of some of the best photography he’s done for them over the years. I can’t tell from the writeup whether this is a personal project of his, or a for-profit opportunity for the group as a whole, but I’m hoping for the latter:

I’ve created an exciting new book called “Imagining Shakespeare” that shows a comprehensive look at all of the award-winning photography, design, advertising and illustration work that I have done for Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass for the last 15 years. It is 284 pages, 8.5×11 softcover, with luscious full color throughout.

So if you’ve got money left over this gift giving season(*) and you’re left wondering how to support Shakespeare, perhaps a nice coffee table book for someone? (*) Given the circumstances I expect these will not exist for this Christmas.  Just saying.

http://www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/2009/12/02/Mass-family-seeking-to-adopt/1259790454.html Pardon the interruption folks, but kindly bear with me. I’ve often mentioned my friends over at Rebel Shakespeare, in particular the founder Keri Cahill who’s already spent a large part of her life dedicated to giving children a gift few people can give. Well, she’s got something straight out of a Shakespeare play going on in her own life, and it’s taken a nasty turn. Keri’s got a daughter, Nastia, adopted from Russia.  So far so good.  But, dig this – Nastia finds out that she’s got an older sister Anya that she never knew she had, stuck in a different orphanage.  Keri immediately sets about trying to reunite the sisters, bring Anya to the US and give her a home as well, flying over to Russia to make it happen.  Out from under her Russia essentially changes the rules, declaring Anya to be an adult and pretty much kicking her out on her own.  In the process, making her ineligible for the same sort of adoption that Keri was able to make happen for Nastia.  (At least I think I’ve got the details right.)  The orphanage that Keri’d been working with essentially just disappeared out from under her, years of money and paperwork vanished. Keri’s been working for years to get Anya an education visa, and had everything so close to complete that she was literally days away, after all this time.  Seriously.  All of her friends have been watching her count down the hours on her Facebook status.  That is, until the US Embassy denied the visa at the last minute.  Why?  Nobody knows. They’re looking to get some attention, any attention, on the story.  It’s on the local news (NECN, as linked) and will be a live story at 9PM tonight as well. They’ve got a Facebook group going, too, to get the word out about what’s going on. It seems like half Keri’s life has been dedicated to Shakespeare.  I think it’s only right that if there’s anything we Shakespeare geeks can do to support her in this heartbreaking part, that we do it.  Post the story on your own blogs.  Forward.  Link.  Repeat.   We’re talking a mother whose kid is stuck in a foreign country, and she can’t do anything about it.  I can’t imagine it.

http://laist.com/2009/12/02/jonas_oppenheim_wants_hamelt_to_shu.php When I saw a story about somebody doing Hamlet “without a single one of Shakespeare’s words” I assumed a modern translation, and was all set to lay in some snarky comment about making sure they don’t use any of the words Shakespeare invented, either, if they’re gonna play that game. Well, umm, no.  The play’s got no words at all.  He’s doing Hamlet entirely as a dumb show.

I’d been thinking about how to do a play that can travel anywhere in the world, without worrying about language barriers. Someone told me that Charlie Chaplin was a huge star in non-English-speaking countries. I started thinking about how to sustain full-length comic narratives without dialogue. I was going to write an original play – something along the lines of satirizing/apologizing for foul American foreign policy – but decided I didn’t want my first experiment in the non-verbal medium to also have the pressure of perfecting a new story. I started thinking about stories that I could hang this concept on, and "Hamlet" came to mind pretty quickly. First I thought of the dumbshow, then about how I could establish so many of the characters with body language. It flowed pretty easily after that.

I’m far more interested in it now.  I’m not sure as a modern audience I could sit still for 2+ hours of silence (even Charlie Chaplin movies had background music, didn’t they?) but the idea of making it universal by taking language out of it is neat.  We can say Shakespeare’s universal all we want, but when you get right down to it that means “…to the English speaking world.”  As soon as you translate it, you don’t have Shakespeare’s words anymore.  So why not a project that just gets rid of the words altogether?

http://www.thedailycity.com/2009/12/every-christmas-story-ever-told.html Somebody down in Orlando steals my intellectual property 🙂 I do not dress like that.

At some point or another in their careers, I expect that all young actors and actresses will consider Shakespeare, in order to be taken seriously.  Sometimes it’ll work, sometimes not.  For every Jude Law there’s an Ethan Hawke. I think the ladies have it even tougher.  Shakespeare didn’t write many Daisy Duke / blonde bombshell roles, so once an actress is stereotyped as eye candy it’s that much harder for her to be taken seriously. I was a little worried, then, when I saw this article about country star Carrie Underwood being "more than just blonde hair and a pretty dress", especially when it came up in my Shakespeare filters.  Ugg. But surprise surprise:

"I don’t have an acting "bug." It’s not something that is on my bucket list," Underwood said. "But if the right thing came up and we were approached and told ‘hey, this would be something cool for you, something small.’ I’m not looking to do any Shakespeare or anything major. Something small, something fun and it sounds like it would be a good time then I’d be in."

Maybe she could write a song about Shakespeare instead?  It worked for Taylor Swift.