Shakespeare and Africa: Students Develop Stage Play for Bayreuth and Berlin
#Theater #Shakespeare #DecolonizeTheStage #Bayreuth #Berlin #AfricaMultiple #UniBayreuth #ShakesWIR
https://bit.ly/453uTLY

QUEEN MARGARET: They that stand high have many blasts to shake them;

And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

— Richard III, I, iii

Sonnet 154 - CLIV
The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;
And so the General of hot desire
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

bot by @davidaugust

Marlowe's Tamburlane was translated from the original Klingon https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/learn/content/4542 #shakespeare

Sonnet 021 - XXI
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 075 - LXXV
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

bot by @davidaugust

I am overly irked by the perpetual misunderstanding and/or misapplication of the line "Now is the winter of our discontent..." from #Shakespeare 's #RichardIII.

I am a lot of fun at parties.

A federal judge has struck down U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order targeting law firm Perkins Coie, saying it “violates the Constitution and is thus null and void.” "No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: 'The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,'" U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in her opinion, in which she issued a permanent injunction.

https://flip.it/wcTUHi

Wow

“this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, act 4, sc. 2, 1. 75. When Shakespeare's character, a rebel leader intent on becoming king, see id. 1. 74, hears this suggestion, he promptly incorporates this tactic as part of his plan to assume power”

https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lo7ultbgj52m

Any judge citing Shakespeare in an opinion wins the day in my book.

Screenshot from Kyle Cheney's excerpt from Judge Beryl Howell's opinion in the Perkins Coie case.
#Shakespeare #politics

The American Shakespeare Festival Theatre Site in Stratford, Connecticut

Markets and festivals take place at this former home of a 1,500-seat theater, which burned to the ground in 2019.#theater #theaters #shakespeare #section-Atlas
The American Shakespeare Festival Theatre Site

My nerd famliy makes me happy. This is a chat between my kid and their mother.

Background: their mother is a classicist (i.e., historian who speaks a few extra languages). The child has been in about 10 Shakespeare productions in local kids' & adult community theater. They are both capable of speaking/texting syntactically and orthographically correct Elizabethan English when they feel like it.

Sonnet 058 - LVIII
That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O! let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.

bot by @davidaugust

The modern take on #Shakespeare’s tragedy, “Othello,” starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, has recouped its entire investment after nine weeks on Broadway.

Capitalized for up to $9 million, the show is now the highest-grossing play revival in #history.

https://variety.com/2025/legit/news/denzel-washington-jake-gyllenhaal-othello-tony-nomination-snub-recoups-investment-1236383624/

Can anyone think of a word that rhymes with “prithee” which isn’t “privy”?

Sonnet 148 - CXLVIII
O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight;
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 135 - CXXXV
Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in over-plus;
More than enough am I that vexed thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in Will, add to thy Will
One will of mine, to make thy large will more.
Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

bot by @davidaugust

CAPULET: All things that we ordained festival

Turn from their office to black funeral:

Our instruments to melancholy bells,

Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;

Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,

Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,

And all things change them to the contrary.

— Romeo and Juliet, IV, v