After I took my kids to see a local community theater production of Peter Pan, I decided that I wanted them to see the version that was canonical in my mind. When I was a kid, my brother and I had a couple dozen videos and minimal access to actual television. We solidly memorized every […]
I literally don’t know how many times someone has said, “Well, you’ve read Tina Packer’s book, of course”…and I hadn’t. Women of Will has been on my TBR list since it was published, and I’ve only just now gotten to it. It was worth the wait. The book details Packer’s own experiences directing and performing […]
Antony and Cleopatra is a play I think I will direct every 15 years (Why this play? I have several reasons). I can’t help but be fascinated by a story of a woman who burns too bright. I directed it for the first time as a 20-year-old at Hiram College Theater. My mentor told me […]
You know sometimes when some virtual stranger is wrong on the internet and you just can’t help yourself? Well, I got in a Twitter argument last winter over whether or not Antony and Cleopatra is a work of staggering genius. I kept writing, “AND ANOTHER THING.” As we’re getting Pigeon Creek Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra […]
When I heard that Quill was doing an all-female Taming, I felt like this was the rare production of this text that I could handle seeing. I’m not a fan of the script. It’s not just the abuse that I don’t like (although there’s that). I also don’t think that the Bianca suitor plot is […]
My friend Jacob spotted Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare’s Roles for Women, by Harriet Walter, at a bookstore and snagged it for me. I hadn’t heard of it, although I have been following Walter’s recent work with much interest, particularly her trilogy of all-female productions of Shakespeare. This book is less a retrospective memoir […]
It’s been two years since the time when my pastor asked me to create a drama Sunday. “Do I have to do a Bible story?” I asked. “Church drama scripts are nearly all terrible, and I’m no playwright.” “Do whatever you want,” she said. “Whatever I want” is almost always Shakespeare. I’m not sure if […]
Our local community theater put up Peter Pan and I took the kids. I’ve seen some things at Valley Players in the past that were outstanding (Outside Mullingar is a favorite). A few kids my kids knew were in the show as well. I should preface this by saying that I cannot even begin to […]
Get in. We’re going back to Egypt! Performance at the Rose, Blue Lake, Michigan, August 24.
Recently, I was talking with an actor about another play entirely, and he happened to mention rather out of nowhere that there existed a sort of performance diary book about the Peter Hall production of Antony and Cleopatra. The one with Dame Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins. I hadn’t ever heard of this book–although the […]