Twitter user ScottySheldon brought up a new game yesterday – best “intro” in Shakespeare.  At first I thought he meant “best opening lines” which has been done to death. But that’s not what he meant.

What he meant was, a character enters, and some other characters says “Oh, hey Ophelia.”  Well, technically, someone says something like “Oh look here comes Ophelia” and then Ophelia enters.

That, I don’t think I’ve seen before.  All the plays are ripe for the picking — any character, any play, how is that character introduced?  Lots to choose from.

Off the top of my head I think I might point to “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes” as an introduction for Macbeth’s entrance. I like it so much that I once did a whole post about just that one line.  The way it introduces Macbeth, a human being, as “something”?  Not someone – some *thing*.  Something inhuman.

Should we count Orsino’s “If music be the food of love…” line?  It’s not like he’s technically introducing himself, but as far as the language of the stage goes, this is certainly his introduction to the audience.  You immediately know what sort of character he is when he starts out like that.

A funny thing happened today on Twitter. I’ve now (at least, at the moment!) got more followers than the Folger Library.

I know, Twitter is pretty much the very definition of trivial, people telling other people what they had for breakfast.  And I know that celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Lady Gaga number their followers in the millions.
But at least for a moment, at least for our tiny little Shakespearean corner of that universe, I’ve potentially got more people listening to me than to the Folger itself.

Think about that for a second.

This is no dig at Folger, not by a long shot.  They are who they are, after all – the center of the Shakespeare universe (* at least in the US – Stratford may have some commentary on that subject).  They use Twitter less than I do, and they use it for different purposes (although they do, frequently and generously, re-tweet many of the silly games that Bardfilm and I come up with).

And here I sit, a computer engineer without even an academic background in the subject, with a following that surpasses theirs.

It’s moments like this that make me fascinated by social media.  Why do I have more followers? Is it because I use the service more?  I don’t think that’s it.  I’ve got maybe 6000 tweets. I’ll show you people that have 20,000 and still only a fraction of the followers. I think it’s because I am deliberately going out and reaching as *wide* an audience as I possibly can, using Shakespeare as my vehicle. 

There’s an audience of Shakespeare lovers.  No doubt.  I count myself among them.  When I see a search engine I always type “Shakespeare” first, to see what I get.  It doesn’t take long for all of us to find each other and share the love on all these different networks.

What I’m going after is every single person who even *recognizes* Shakespeare.  I make Shakespeare jokes.  Lots of em.  Today, during the hashtag “Once you’re married you can’t…”  I wrote, “…poison your husband and marry his brother.”  I honestly don’t know how many people recognized it as a Hamlet reference and how many just thought it something funny for a married person to say, but that little quote alone brought in over 100 followers.  Surely they see the Shakespeare in my name, ShakespeareGeek. They have to know what they’re getting into, right? 🙂

I guess what I’m trying to say is that when you look at the Folger (or the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, or Stanley Wells, or any other big names in the Shakespeare game), and the people who seek them out and follow them, you think “That tells me something about that person.  That person likes Shakespeare.”  When you look at the folks who follow me?  I want you to think, “That says something about Shakespeare.”  The appeal is universal, and I’m looking to prove it every day.

Thanks to everybody that’s joined in the Twitter fun!  If you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for?

I’ve always wondered if people did these!  I know it’s short notice, but Theatre All Around out of Manchester, NH is doing a Shakespeare flash mob later this week.  They appear to be in desperate need of some bodies (as in, “if we can’t get enough people we can’t do it at all”), so if you’re in the neighborhood, get in contact and see if you can help them out!  You can be “on book” so no need to worry about memorizing on short notice.  You just need to be a willing body.

Flying solo this time, I spotted the #shedidntcallbecause tag on Twitter and the rest, as they say, is history.

She Didn’t Call You Because…

• …you stabbed her dad.  She’s out picking flowers to make herself feel better.
•  …Friar Laurence buried her alive, and she’s got no cell reception in the tomb.
• …yo, seriously, her dad is crazy. Thinks he’s a wizard. Said he’d chain you up and turn you into a slave if she talked to you again. 
• …she’s washing the blood off her hands and dropped the phone in the sink.
• …you wrongly accused her of getting pregnant by your best friend, and she had to go into hiding for 16 years.
• …she said to tell you she was going to go play with her pet snake.
• …you called her a whore and broke up with her. On your wedding day. Who does that?
• …all you were offering was mac and cheese, and Titus invited her over for pie.
• …you may have put the roofie in her drink, but she went home with some other ass.
• …you’ve got a pillow over her face.

• It was Iago on the Island of Cyprus with the Handkerchief. 
• Claudius in the Orchard with the Vial of Ear Poison Thingie.
• Titus in the kitchen with the pie. 
• It was Richard III in the Winter of Discontent with the EVERYTHING.
• Claudio at the Wedding with the Accusation of Infidelity. 
• Ophelia in the river with the flowers.  (too soon?)
   
• Gertrude on the Riverbank with the Alibi! 
• It was Juliet in the tomb with a happy dagger
• Friar Laurence in the tomb with the poorly executed plan.  He gets credit for a two-fer.
   
• Timon in the Cave with the Misogyny.  
• Claudius in the duel with the Laertes. (Think about it. 🙂 )
   
• Oberon with the Love Juice in the Bower.   [Sounds naughty, but isn’t.]
• Shylock in the Courtroom with the Scales. 
• Caesar, in the senate, with the failure to heed soothsayers. 
• Antony at the Base of the Tower with the Ill-advised Credulity. 
• Brutus in the End with the Ides. 
• Henry in the Field with the Agincourt.  
• Helena, in the bed, with the questionable morality.
• Richard on the battlefield without a horse
• Oliver in the Forest of Arden with the Deus Ex Machina. 
• Cornwall in Gloucester’s Castle with the Regan.  
• Cordelia, in the Beginning, with the Nothing. 
• It was Romeo at the Party with the Best Pick-Up Lines Ever. 
• It was the Oxfordians in the Conspiracy with the Stupidity. 
• It was Oxford in the Anonymity with the Education. 
• Cassius, in his tent, with the Pindarus
• Iago in Othello’s ears with words
• It was Paulina in the Winter’s Tale with the Sixteen-Years-of-Deception.
   
• Falstaff in the Pub.  That’s all.