I live just outside of Boston.  No, I was not in town when the unthinkable happened.  I did have family and friends there.  My sister-in-law’s brother (and his wife, whatever that makes her to me) were there.  My daughter’s 5th grade teacher was there.  A parent from my daughters’ Irish step dancing class was there.  A cub scout father was there.  My young coworkers have many friends at colleges throughout Boston, all of whom were there.  To the best of my ability to track them, all are safe (although each of them, in turn, has friends and acquaintances who were affected more severely).

In an upcoming post you’ll hear me refer to Shakespeare as my comfort.  Shakespeare’s words are what I turn to when I am unable to otherwise express what I might be feeling at any given time.

What words does Shakespeare have for Boston at a time like this?  I’m honestly asking.  I don’t want grief over the fallen.  I know that.  I want something more, something that speaks to our strength, that we will rise up out of this chaos stronger than we were before.

Help me.

I’m sure everybody knows we celebrate a very special day on April 23.  I long ago got tired of alternately referring to it as Shakespeare’s Birthday and The Day Shakespeare Died and decided to make it my own personal holiday.  Around here we call it Shakespeare Day.

Y’all know me, I never give up.  Earlier this year I mentioned to all my children’s teachers that I would volunteer to do a unit on Shakespeare for their class, tuned however they like.  A couple weeks ago my middle geeklet’s teacher sent a note home asking for more information.   So I promptly wrote her a lengthy bunch of suggestions, and never heard back.

That’s because she never got it.  Tonight was one of those “academic fairs” where the parents wander around the school looking at our kids’ projects, and sure enough this teacher came up to me and asked for more details.  I asked if she’d ever gotten the email, she said she had not.

So!  Here’s how I pitched it, just to put some scope on it.  I told her that we can tackle the subject one of three ways:

1)  History/biography.  Who Shakespeare was, when he lived, what was going on at the time, what role he plays in history, that sort of thing.  Probably the least interesting, but also the easiest and most straightforward.  (The kids’ projects we were looking at were all biographies, so it tied in).

2) Poetry/Meter/Rhyme/Memorization.  I know that each grade does some degree of poetry work so I know that this could fit in easily with their regularly scheduled plans.

3) Get them out of their seats and performing some scenes!  I emphasized that this is by far the most fun and most valuable but that it’s also got the most variables – finding acceptable scenes, dealing with the shy kids, managing head count, etc…  (I’m sure you directors don’t see any of those as a hurdle but if I’m going to get one shot at this I don’t want to spend 90% of the time trying to coax a kid out of his seat, or convince a boy to play a girl’s role.)

#3 is her clear favorite, and as “head teacher” she doesn’t think that there’ll be any obstacles.  So it looks like we’re on….again!

If anybody’s got pointers to scene selections appropriate for 8yr olds, send them my way.  I’ve got some copies of “Shakespeare for Kids” and “60 Minute Shakespeare” around here someplace so I’m going to try those as well.  Both of those are modern translations that leave in key passages, which might be the easiest way to go for an introduction.

Yay!

Don’t forget, our Share Shakespeare and Win contest is still open (until Sunday March 31)!  Just download the ShakeShare iPhone application, find a quote from (or inspired by) The Tempest and post it to Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest and you can will a copy of Julie Taymor’s 2010 film starring Helen Mirren and Russell Brand.  For more details and complete rules, see the link above for the original post.

So far I’ve got exactly *1* extremely enthusiastic entry from Noah who might well have found every quote there is to find :).  But I’ve got 3 copies to give away, so if you want ridiculously good odds at being one of them, why not enter?

Sometimes when Bardfilm and I are bored we drag each other down into the pit of procrastination, as we’d both rather talk about Shakespeare than pretty much anything else.  He’s typically better at it than I, however, as his job is mostly doing Shakespeare things to begin with.  When I’m talking Shakespeare it’s a guarantee that I am 100% not doing my day job. 🙂

Anyway, this morning he threw a mediocre limerick at me, I called him on its quality, and he challenged me to do better.  Here’s what I threw back:

There once was an earl named de Vere
Who claimed to have written Shakespeare.
He had not the skill,
But there’s no books in the will!
And that’s all the evidence we’ll hear.

Now I put it to you, faithful readers.  If you think mine’s mediocre as well?  Do better, in the comments. 🙂