All I know about “The Fosters” is that the commercials keep coming up while my pre-teen children try to watch their shows, and those commercials typically want to talk about very not pre-teen things.  So it’s not a show I hold in high regard.  I knew I was on the right track when this story appeared last month about a high school banning Romeo and Juliet because it glorifies teen suicide.  They have the obligatory student debate about it … and “ban it” apparently won.

So last night I’m in the kitchen making dinner and I know the kids have got the ABC Family Channel (now “Freeform”) on, like they do.  So when I hear a random “Juliet” come out of the tv my head naturally whips around to see what’s up. My first thought is, “This must be something having to do with last month’s episode,” while still thinking, “Why would they still be talking about last month’s episode?”

And they’re singing. They are in masquerade attire, and they are singing.  What dark magic is this?

Apparently, in the spirit of Glee, it’s a Romeo and Juliet Rock Musical.

Does anybody follow the plot line of this show and know what’s going on? This could be awesome.  Every television show about high school kids has, at one point or another, done a Shakespeare episode.  And it’s almost always about the balcony scene.  But I don’t recall anyone attempting to do an entire retelling of the play – as a musical, no less!  I’m kind of excited about this.

Whenever I spotted a headline like “Coding is More Important Than Shakespeare,” I thought, “This ought to be good.” I think regular readers know me well enough at this point to know that I know both subjects quite well, and often cross them.

Here’s the thing. He didn’t say that coding is more important than Shakespeare (and he even returns in the comments of his original piece) to point this out.  The word Shakespeare appears just once in his original arguing, as does the word “programming”.  The word “coding” is absent.

It is a massive article by internet standards and, perhaps proving his point, most of the people who read it will not have the mental ability to understand it – and I count myself among those that don’t. I get his general idea that there is a set of “stuff people should learn” that is objectively more useful (and thus important) than other stuff.  He then goes into great detail with specific examples, and I’ll just say that poor Malcolm Gladwell does not come out of it well.

I like Khosla’s summary in the comments – “If there are 100 things you can learn, but you’ve only got space to teach 32 of them, how do you decide which 32?”  It’s a valid question that I ask myself regularly as I watch my children progress through school, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will never again need to know half of what they’re being tested on. I think we should have more focus on finance, personally.

By the logic of practicality, I think he’s right. If you told me my kids’ school was going to offer programming or Shakespeare, I’d vote for programming. I think my life kind of proves that point, because I am not sitting here with a Shakespeare degree and self-taught in programming, but rather vice versa. This morning I had a conversation with the CTO of my company, who I learned used to be a theatre guy.

You have your entire life to learn whatever you want, and you shouldn’t ever stop. The debate isn’t over what is useful or important to learn – the original piece asks specifically about majoring in liberal arts.  You learn important things every day. No one is stopping you from learning Shakespeare whenever and however you want. But our society’s ability to place teachers in front of you, people who are paid to be there, in buildings that are paid to keep the lights on, and to provide you with text books and so on, for a certain period of time, is limited. We need to choose.

My daughter is in eighth grade and I believe the only Shakespeare she’ll see this year is Romeo and Juliet, at the end of the year, briefly.  When she goes to high school I’m led to believe that English lit is an 11th grade class, so I assume that if she sees any Shakespeare, that’s where it will be. But when it came time to ask about the curriculum I didn’t say, “Why isn’t there more Shakespeare?”  I said, “Why isn’t there more programming?” I wished there was more Shakespeare, sure. But, like Khosla said, if I’ve got two questions and only opportunity to ask one, which one do I pick?

I wish we could choose Shakespeare more often.  But I understand why we typically can’t. Why in the world do you think I’ve been exposing my kids to Shakespeare since birth? Did you really think I was going to rely on the system to provide it to them?  I consider it my job to educate my kids until a time where they can educate themselves.  The system merely provides some structure and filler for a period of time, intended to jump start them into the “real” world where, hopefully, they won’t fall flat on their faces as soon as someone stops holding their hand.

Imagine a production of Romeo and Juliet that opens in the tomb, with both dead. Cue prologue.

One of the most common questions asked about Romeo and Juliet is why Shakespeare gives away the ending (“A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life”) in the first lines. It is the very definition of a spoiler, and it is baked right into the script.

Today on the way to work I was thinking about other stories that open up three quarters of the way through. We’re in the middle of a wedding, or the good guy is being chased by a horde of bad guys, and we have just a moment to wonder, “How’d we get here?” before the scene changes, some sort of “Six months prior…” card appears on screen, and we start the real story. There’s a stake in the ground now. Instead of sitting back and thinking, “I wonder what’s going to happen?” you’re left thinking, “I wonder how we’re going to get from here to there?”

That’s exactly what Shakespeare does. Granted, the modern version usually opens with the good guy in significant peril but, you know, not actually dead yet. Still, though, the point stands. You immediately open with a “Wait, what? How does that happen exactly?” moment where you find yourself thrown into the end of the story, and then suddenly the scene changes and you get to see the story from the beginning.

Don’t forget Paris!  Fine, you know this is Romeo and Juliet, you hear “pair of star-crossed lovers” and see a young man and women entwined in death, you get that.  But who the heck is the random dude on the floor? What’s his story?

Oo! I just thought of something even better. Instead of opening to the scene of them already dead, open to Romeo still alive and holding the poison. Or, I suppose, Juliet holding the dagger.  Play it on alternate nights. Really build up the suspense.  I mean, you know in your head that they both die. But with tricks like this you still have to spend the play wondering if just maybe?

I’m not sure how I feel about The Globe’s decision to rename Cymbeline to Imogen, because in the words of director Emma Rice, “Imogen speaks three times more lines than Cymbeline so it really is her story.”

Ok, let’s go with that. Here’s how the rest of the plays shake up based on the Imogen Rule:

Hamlet gets to keep his play (well, duh). So do Richard III, Lear, Macbeth and Titus. Shame – would have been fun to name the play Lady Macbeth.

Sorry Othello, but I think we’ve all secretly wanted the play to be called Iago anyway.

Julius Caesar is now Brutus, much to the delight of high school students everywhere who never really understood why it wasn’t called that in the first place.

Ok, let’s take a vote, do you pick Antony or Cleopatra? Because under the new rules it can’t be both.  Ready?   … Antony wins.  See, I would have said Cleopatra.

Same deal for the younger said… Romeo or Juliet?  Romeo.  See, again, I would have thought Juliet.

Henry IV Part 2 is now Falstaff, and this pleases the ghost of Orson Welles.

The Tempest is now Prospero, and I’m totally ok with that.

Ok, last one and then I have to go do useful things.

King John shall henceforth be known as?   Bastard.

(* I got all my character line counts here, if you want to expand the list.)