I call it our mission statement:  “Dedicated to proving that Shakespeare makes life better.”

I know what I mean by that.  But I can’t always articulate it (mostly because I have so many different ways to answer that).  Want to play a game? Complete the following sentence:

Shakespeare makes my life better because …

… it makes me feel connected to more people than I would ever know otherwise. Guy takes a picture of my “Mercutio Drew First” t-shirt last week. Made my day.  Why? Because I know that he knows enough Shakespeare to get the reference, and knows that his daughter will get the reference, and found it important enough to share with her.  Awesome. Something I did just touched two strangers.

…you learn and you teach at the same time. My friends, family and coworkers think of me as the Shakespeare guy, deferring all Shakespeare related topics and questions to me, and assuming I have all the answers.  And I enjoy that, because to the extent that I have the answers, I love to talk about it – if people around me learn more about Shakespeare through me?  Super. The world’s a better place.  But my online friends for the most part know more about Shakespeare than I do, so the roles are reversed. I spend more of my time listening and learning from them.  I’m totally ok with it being both. I’m always open to learning what I don’t know, and sharing what I do.

…knowing Shakespeare is like adding salt to food when you cook. It doesn’t make things taste salty, it makes thing taste more like they were supposed to taste in the first place. It intensifies the flavor that was already there. Shakespeare intensifies the way I feel about things, because I know that somebody else has already managed to put those feelings into words, and I can use those words to communicate what I’m feeling with other humans who are also feeling the same thing.

Who’s next?

Early indications are, though some of us may be more optimistic (read: clinging to hope) than others, nobody really thinks the new “Will” show is all that great.  And we can forget completely about Still Star-Cross’d, which ran out of Shakespeare material in the first episode.

What would you want in a Shakespearean television show?  What could they have done, that would have made the show “must see tv” in your universe?

For my part, I think I wear it on my sleeve – give me the text.  Start with people saying Shakespeare’s words, and I’m already about 70% there.  It doesn’t have to be the actual character of William Shakespeare.  It could just as easily be high school students.  The important part would be in the delivery.  The words have to come from a place of sincerity.  It would be too easy (especially in the high school case) to go more for cliche and mockery. I don’t want that.  I want lightning bolts to shoot up my spine every time somebody drops a line I recognize.  

Beyond that, I love it when the meta story echoes the text.  Go ahead and tell a Romeo and Juliet story while actually reading/studying/performing Romeo and Juliet, I’m ok with it.  Granted it’s a little overdone.  So do it with King Lear instead. But don’t abandon the text for the story.

I think that Slings & Arrows is as close to ideal as I’ve yet seen.

I don’t really need the historical accuracy stuff.  Elizabethan England was not a glamorous era, based on what I’m learning.  The prettier you make the show look, the more people will tell you it looks like a Renaissance Faire.  The better looking your actors, the more discussion we can have about the lack of dentistry and personal hygiene, not to mention plague.  But who wants to look at sick ugly people every week?

What about you? What’s your must have ingredient for a Shakespeare show? Do you want the biographical stuff?  Or the more fanciful Dark Lady theories? Historical accuracy? You prefer Shakespeare as a character or would you rather see a story about Falstaff?

I suppose this was inevitable, what with “Will” on TNT premiering this week.  Somebody’s gone and created a list of the Sexiest Shakespeares.  That is, portrayals of Shakespeare as a character in television and movies.

Joseph Fiennes. Shakespeare in Love.

Any other questions?  Seriously, I was most curious about how many entries this list might have, after Shakespeare in Love and Will. Would the Black Adder version make the list? How about Upstart Crow?  Yes and no, respectively.

I didn’t know about half the movies in this list, and a couple of them look interesting.  An imagined meeting between Shakespeare and Cervantes? That could be cool. I wonder if Cardenio was a major plot point?

I don’t think it’s fair that Dr. Who gets two entries.  They didn’t even include Shakespeare in I Dream of Jeannie. I could swear there are other sitcom “conjured William Shakespeare by mistake” plotlines out there as well, aren’t there?

Aw, man – I started compiling a list (remember Robert Reed as Shakespeare in a Fantasy Island episode?) but it looks like somebody beat me to it.

Spent my daughter’s birthday wandering through Boston with the family, so of course I’m wearing my Mercutio Drew First shirt :).  “Gotta advertise when you get the chance!” I tell my daughter.  She laughs and says, “I think that every time when I’m running! I wear my shirt and I just imagine people seeing that it’s got Shakespeare on it and thinking, There goes Duane’s daughter.”

Anyway, we’re in the North End for lunch, and I’m waiting for the ladies when a man asks me, “Can I take a picture of your shirt?”

But of course!  I sit up straight, do what I can to suck in the gut and hope I don’t look too much like Comic Book Nerd from the Simpsons.  “Thanks,” he says, “I have to send that to my daughter, she’s really into Shakespeare.”

“I made it,” I tell him.  “It’s available on Amazon.”

He asks, “Really? Do you have a business card or something?”

I tell him no, but I’m easily googled as “Shakespeare Geek,” and that there’s a whole bunch of us, there’s a lot more shirts, we’re on Facebook,

Twitter, all of that.

He says he’ll have to tell his daughter about us, and thanks me again.  After he left my son, tells me, “Oh my god you have such a big smile on your face since he came up to you.  Your face wasn’t even in the picture.”

“Not why I’d be smiling,” I told him.  “I’ve always wanted somebody to ask me about my shirt, that’s why I wear it!  Not to mention that’s totally a blog post.  Just in case he does tell his daughter, and she does google us.”  So, if she happens to be here doing exactly that, hi there 🙂  Here’s the Amazon page with all the shirts currently available.  But check back in the fall because I’m adding more all summer!

That’s one for the bucket list.  The next two are:

• See a complete stranger wearing my merchandise.
• Have somebody actually recognize me as Shakespeare Geek.

Should either of those happen, you know I’ll be writing about it here!