Love's Labour's Lost

I'm especially looking forward to re-reading this one!  Harold Bloom says of it:  "...we all have particular favorites, in literature as in life, and I take more unmixed pleasure from Love's Labour's Lost than from any other Shakespearean play."  

Wow, eh?  That's some amazing praise from the man who wrote the book on the bard: "Shakespeare, the Invention of the Human."  

The surprise ending to this overtly romantic comedy is my favorite part of it.  It becomes most relevant when the veils of fondness are removed and reality takes over.  I'll be directing an edited version of this for a high school this coming fall and am excited to see how the students will choose to play the end.  (I've not done the edit, yet, so Shakespeare Allowed! will be very helpful to me in this process!)

See you at the downtown library at 1pm on Saturday, June 6th!

The Two Gents ...

The Jive! Digital Printing Question of the month:
Be the first to respond on this blog in the COMMENTS below with the correct answer and win a free T-shirt!

What theme did The Nashville Shakespeare Festival produce The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Shakespeare in the Park 2007.

Hint: check here for a photo archive of past productions!

2 Gentlemen of Verona!

This Saturday, May 2, we'll read aloud Shakespeare's comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona.  (With 2200 lines, it's almost as short as The Comedy of Errors, so we should be done by 3pm)  For me, one of the most interesting things about this play is how Shakespeare wove a thick thread of serious betrayal through a comedy: the friendship of the two young men remains intact, while the love of the young woman betrayed doesn't falter.  ...interesting.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts about how this worked and what you think Shakespeare was saying with this plot.

The Taming of the Shrew

The reading yesterday was delightful. I am continually amazed at how well just reading the words out loud without a lot of "acting" conveys the characters and plot. A couple of people have asked why I don't "cast" the readings. Switching voices prevents anybody from putting too much spin on any character, and keeps the focus on the words alone. I really like going around the circle to keep everybody involved. We're truly reading together as a community!


Jive! Digital Printing Question of the Month -- What did you notice in Saturday's reading of The Taming of The Shrew that you didn't realize before? (Leave your comment below)

First post (test)

Glad to have a place to discuss the Shakespeare Allowed readings!  

This Blog is Under Construction -

Next Discussion April 11, 2009 - Facilitated by The Nashville Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director, Denice Hicks.

Meanwhile - Check out the Press

Broadway World

The Tennessean Feature Story

Here's an interview from the November Reading!