Loyal Readers,

I have some news that’s equal parts exciting and “here, let me put it on the table so you can see every card I’m holding.”

Last week I was accepted into the MasterClass affiliate program. That means if you click one of their links or banners on this site and end up subscribing, I earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you.

Relevance > Revenue

I didn’t go hunting for any affiliate program that would pay a buck. I specifically looked for something that overlaps with what we already obsess over here: Shakespeare, acting, storytelling. MasterClass happens to have Natalie Portman, Helen Mirren, Samuel L. Jackson, and more teaching exactly those topics. Trust me when I say this, I’m looking at all the different ad campaigns available to me now, and you won’t be seeing anything about mastering the markets or designing every space in your home. We do Shakespeare here, and I don’t plan to stray from that.

All Ads Are Not Created Equal

Look, I know there are ads on the site already. I hate them as much as you do. But I’m also not a fan of the fact that I’ve run this site (which means paying to host it) for many years, and never really tried to make money from it. My daughter was just born when I started. You know what? She’s finishing college this year. You know what else? That costs a lot of money. I hope no one begrudges me that.

Where I can make money to offset my costs, I have to consider my options. And even though I have my core of loyal readers, I have thousands of anonymous people dropping in from Google searches, too. So, not monetizing their traffic is just leaving money on the table, honestly.

I’d much rather make money through partnerships like this. They’re less invasive, more relevant, and ultimately, I make more revenue. So if you bear with me for a little while as I continually try to optimize this area of site maintenance, I think we’ll all benefit in the long run. Click on some banners, explore what MasterClass (and possibly soon other affiliates) have to offer. Not for you? Maybe something you could give as a gift to the actor or Shakespeare geek in your life?

Of Course There Are Always Other Ways

I’m going to go ahead here and say that merchandise sales can be a great alternate source of revenue, too! Please make it a point to stop by the Shakespeare Geek Merchandise Shop before you leave! What were we just saying about gifts for your friends?)

Or, you know, if you want, you can just go ahead and “buy me a coffee” as they say. I appreciate donations in all forms.

The Content Won’t Change

I’ve been in the web game for a very long time. I know all the tricks for how to “optimize” your content when really that means optimizing my revenue, not your experience. That’s not what this is about. I’m not planning on suddenly coming up with posts about how “Shakespeare Shows You How To Master The Markets” just so I can pull more Google traffic and get more clicks. I’ll say it again – we got here by talking about Shakespeare, and that’s not going to change.

Try Before You Commit

MasterClass offers a 30-day refund window. If you dip in and it isn’t for you, you can cancel – commission revoked, guilt-free.

TL;DR

I’m thrilled to partner with a platform whose acting courses line up with the work we already love. If you ever feel the ads are getting in the way, email me—seriously. The curtain only stays up when everyone in the audience can still see the stage.

Thanks for reading, and for trusting me with your inbox and your time.

Break legs,
Duane

P.S. If you’d like to check out the acting lineup (and maybe support the site while you’re at it), you can start here:
MasterClass Acting.

When I caught this headline about someone who “loves the work he does, even the extreme Shakespeare stuff,” it was a definite, “Ok, bookmark that and come back to it later.” What exactly is extreme Shakespeare? Titus Andronicus?

I don’t know if Brandon E. Burton created the term, but he’s using it to refer to their method of prep and rehearsal:

The actors are given a playbook, have only four days to rehearse, and often only know the last line their fellow actors will be saying. The playwright acts as the director, and if you read his instructions carefully you know how to play your part. That’s the way Shakespeare did it and that’s why its called ‘extreme.’

Makes sense to me, and I’d love to see notes from the actors on what it means to them. Much like the Original Pronunciation (OP) approach, there’s something extra added to productions that go out of their way to bring more of Shakespeare’s time and place to the performance.

Has anyone ever done this? I know I’ve got plenty of actors and directors in the crowd. What do you think about the playbook approach where you only know your own lines and interactions? I’ve been led to believe that there are movies that sometimes do this, often to prevent leaking story twists too soon. For Shakespeare I’m sure it was more about efficiency, cost, and other practical factors.

So Extreme Shakespeare is just … Shakespeare the way Shakespeare wanted it?

And am I the only one that gets a kick out of that last line? “That’s the way Shakespeare did it, that’s why it’s called extreme.” What? Doing the play the way it was originally done is extreme now? Reminds me of an old The Onion classic, about the unconventional director who set Shakespeare in the time and place Shakespeare intended. EXTREME!!!

I’ve heard it a thousand times, “Shakespeare wasn’t meant to be read. He’s meant to be performed.” And sure, yes, go see Shakespeare. I’d never say don’t do that. But that doesn’t mean reading Shakespeare is a lesser experience. In fact, I’d say the opposite.

There’s an opportunity for depth in reading Shakespeare that live performance can’t offer. Theatre is ephemeral. Blink and you’ll miss something important – a gesture, a line, an inflection choice. You can’t pause a stage play. You can’t rewind. But the text? The text is always there, waiting for you to come back to it.

Why Reading Shakespeare Might Be Better Than Watching It

Reading Shakespeare invites close reading in a way most literature doesn’t. Even the longest play, Hamlet, is only about 30,000 words – less than half the size of a typical novel. Caught up in the “oh, the language is so hard and archaic” argument, people miss how powerful this can be. There’s a lot of blank space in Shakespeare. Room for interpretation, Filling in your own thoughts on what he didn’t say, in a way that flows seamlessly with what he did. Was Ophelia pregnant? Whose idea was it to kill Duncan – Macbeth’s, or his wife’s?

When you read a novel, how often do you flip back through 70,000+ words to find a clue? I can’t be the only reader out there who has had that experience of realizing on some random page, “My mind was wandering, I don’t think I remember what happened over the last three pages.”

And with audiobooks, forget it. I love audiobooks, that’s all I listen to in the car. But I can’t tell you how often I’ll be struck with a thought and think, “Wait, what? Hold on, back up …” but you can’t do that. You know how, on a video streaming service, when you try to rewind (or fast forward), some show you the video and some don’t? And how that makes all the difference in being able nail exactly where you want to be? Audiobooks don’t have any of that. Trust me, I’ve often brainstormed my idea of the perfect audiobook app that would somehow keep a transcription going while you listened, allowing you to shout “Bookmark!” at any point and remember where you were for later. (I confess, I’ve sometimes been known to go grab the ebook version of an audiobook when I really, really want to know exactly what I missed.)

With Shakespeare, it’s all right there. I mean, it’s literally public domain, you can grab the text from dozens of sources, for free, whenever and however suits you. And then you can go straight to a scene, pick apart the dialogue, literally examining each word. For extra credit you can even look at multiple editions and compare different decisions that were made. You decide how to interpret what’s said, and more importantly, not said. You become part of the process.

Sure, some of the language will be unfamiliar. But that’s part of the reward. Read slowly. Use online glossaries. Let the context guide you. You’ll be amazed how much meaning unfolds when you stop trying to rush through and instead sit with the words. Half the time, it made no sense only because it went by so fast during that precious live performance that you didn’t have any time to stop and think about it. Now you do, as much as you need.

Shakespeare should be seen, absolutely. Go to the theatre, watch the films, enjoy the performances. But reading Shakespeare is what gives you ownership. It’s what stays with you. Not just “I liked the Fassbender Macbeth,” but “Here’s what I think Shakespeare was really saying.” And if you really want it to stay with you, get your hands on an “annotation copy” that’s intended for you to write down exactly what you feel about individual scenes.

That’s the joy. Not just watching, but thinking. Not just hearing the lines, but developing your own personal relationship with them. Make Shakespeare your own.

My kids are the age where they followed Taylor Swift’s last tour pretty religiously. Every couple of weeks (days?), they’d come screaming into the room about which mystery guest she’s brought on stage, or how a certain guest was expected, but they got somebody else. That was part of the experience. The music was basically going to be the same at every tour stop, so it was the “What makes each show different?” element that made it the kind of event that you could look forward to every day.

The 2025 Glastonbury Festival is going on right now, and somebody called Scissor Sisters, who I don’t know, brought out SIR IAN MCKELLEN, who I very much do. I showed the video to my daughter and said, “I would have died. Ok? Died. I may die just watching the video.”

You know that thing where people say, “He could read the phonebook and people would pay to hear it?” This. I have a clip of Judi Dench reciting Sonnet 29 on the Graham Norton show that I go back and play periodically just because of how beautiful her voice sounds when she says “lark.” I don’t even know what Sir Ian is saying in this song. And I don’t care. Whatever he’s shouting for us to do, I’m going to run up a mountain to do it.

I heard this story because the crowd started chanting his name, and he burst into tears. I’m looking for a video of that, but I’m well aware that it may have the same effect on me.

Until then, enjoy the show. He shows up at about 3:30 if you want to skip. Or you can pretend you’re in the audience, and anticipate the big finish. Either way, I’ll be over here, dead.

I may have mentioned that I have a lot of Shakespeare stuff. T-shirts, jigsaw puzzles, keychains, laptop skins … got it all. So much, in fact, that my family’s taken to creating wholly original items! I was definitely not expecting this for Father’s Day 2025:

I love it! A few months back, my oldest had found a service that would do this for your pet using a number of standard templates – king, queen, princess. Without telling me they scoured the site looking for a Shakespeare template, but alas it didn’t exist.

So my son actually made this! I think it came out really good, I love it. Her face is huge, you really get that feeling that you’re being stared at.

Unfortunately (there’s never a good way to drop this into the conversation!), our dog passed away between the time they made these presents, and Father’s Day. Awkward? Not as bad as you’d think. I think we were all happy for the remembrance. We’ve all been looking through our hundreds of pictures anyway, so it was nice to see a creative surprise.

But I am going to attach something to this post to mark the occasion. In times of grief, I’ve always gone back to Constance’s speech in King John, and I wondered if it could be made relevant here. With a little help from AI, I think the answer is yes, it certainly can. Thank you, Shakespeare. Flights of angels, Belle. See you again someday.

Grief fills up the room of my sweet girl:
Lies in her bed, walks up and down with me,
Carries her leash, drops her worn-out toy,
Noses the door, waits where she used to wait—
She haunts the silence. I am not myself;
I am the echo of a happy life
That padded soft behind me on four paws.

O, that my arms were long enough to reach
Into the quiet place where good dogs go—
I’d pull her back by her velvet-soft ears
And feel her heartbeat warm against my chest.
You tell me time will soften what I feel,
But time is cruel—it will not lick my tears,
Nor lay her head across my feet at night.

Grief is not madness, though you call it so.
I am not raving—I am only empty.
She was my shadow, soul, my loyal girl.
Don’t bid me be at peace. She was my dog.