Normally I find links on Reddit, and then we go discuss the original source. Sometimes, though, it’s the comments on the thread that make it interesting. For your Sunday morning enjoyment, check out some of the suggestions provided when a high school girl asked for Shakespeare costume ideas so that she could march in a parade.

By amazing coincidence I just got to hear an NPR interview with F. Murray Abraham, who is currently playing Shylock here in Boston. Did anybody else catch it?
Normally I listen to my iPod on the ride home. Today for some reason (fate!) it hid itself in my bag and I could not find it. Normally I would have sat and dug for it, but I had places to be so I just flipped on NPR instead. Lucky me!
Thoughts
* He’s rather patronizing. Some noises were made by the setup people in the background and he stops the interview to say “We’re doing a thing over here, so quiet please, thank you.” Later when he references Burt Lancaster in a story he adds to the interviewer, “I don’t even know if you know who that is.” Total name drop.
* “Shakespeare invites you to try anything. Try your voice. Try your imagination. He can take it.” I love that quote.
* He found Macbeth harder to play than even Lear. Although he doesn’t elaborate terribly as to why.
* Being inside a theatre, he refers to the Scottish play. I was amused by how naturally that came to him, and was going to comment on it when I got home. Then the interviewer says, “I notice you called it the Scottish Play…can I just” and she didn’t get to finish the sentence, which I would assume was going to be “say the name” before *I* was screaming at the radio “DONT YOU F%^&*ING DARE!” But he calmly informed her to wait until she got outside. Which she did. Why she felt obliged to say the name, since this interview was not about that play at all, I have no idea.
* I always thought he was Jewish. He’s not.
Should be an interesting show. Apparently set on modern Wall Street (or a reasonable facsimile), with obvious connection to the modern day banking crisis.

Hailee Steinfeld, who we last saw telling us about the Shakespearean dialogue in True Grit, may be playing Juliet.
What would make this project intriguing is that Steinfeld is in fact 14, making her one of the most age-appropriate Juliets you’ll find. How would that change your opinion of the movie? Does everyone remember the Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet with a 17yr old, topless Olivia Hussey?
I wonder how old this one will make its Romeo?

I originally asked this question back in 2007 – Is the Shakespeare Association of America for me?
Well it’s been almost 4 years now, and much has changed. If nothing else, I can now say that I’ve spent those last 4 years learning even more about Shakespeare. Plus, my audience has grown and changed, and there are many people here now that weren’t here then.
So I’ll ask it again (mostly because the question’s come up) : Given what you, dear readers, know about me… is the SAA for me?

I’ll just leave this here without comment.