When Love Speaks

Oooooo, want this. When Love Speaks is a CD of celebrities doing performances of Shakespeare sonnets and other famous works by you know who. The sample included in this all-flash site is Alan Rickman doing Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun…”), but the CD also contains Richard Attenborough doing #17 (“Who will believe my verse in time to come…”) which I recited at my wedding, and Joseph Fiennes doing “Our revels now are ended…” from The Tempest.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

Hamlet’s Castle is Haunted

It appears that Hamlet’s castle is haunted. Or, at least, Kronburg Castle, which claims to be the inspiration for Shakespeare’s greatest work.

“Windows and doors fly open, stacks of paper disappear and reappear elsewhere, and tables set themselves,” she said.

Most of the employees have reported strange happenings at the restaurant, such as two seeing inexplicable gray shadows waft by and another claiming to have seen the ghost of an old man in the kitchen, Pedersen said.

Whatever they are, they seemed to be good-natured and don’t frighten the guests.
I like it. I wonder if the ghost is Polonius? Getting a snack? Seems like there’s a “not where he’s eaten, but where he eats” pun in there someplace.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

Happy Holidays, Everybody!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, been a busy few weeks. We’re entertaining at my house for Christmas this year and trying to get the addition finished before everybody shows up. I’m still on the lookout for good stories, but right this moment I don’t have the time to dig through as many sources as I usually do.
So, have a great holiday, whichever you may be celebrating – although I believe some of the major ones all overlap this year, right? First day of Hannukah is the day after Christmas, and isn’t Kwaanza(sp?) always celebrated during that week anyway?

Michigan Shakespeare fans rejoice

Patrick Stewart is coming. As part of a 3 week visit from the Royal Shakepseare Company to University of Michigan in late October, Stewart will play Anthony in Anthony and Cleopatra, and Prospero in The Tempest.

I think I knew that Stewart was doing the Royal Shakespeare thing, but I’m not sure I ever realized that it’s here in the states. I thought it was an England thing.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

Is this a dagger that I see before me? Shakespeare’s Smoke and Mirrors

As a geek I have to love this article that explains how Shakespeare may have done the “dagger that I see before me” trick in Macbeth. I guess I never really thought about Shakespeare using special effects before, and assumed that maybe an all-black dressed stagehand held the dagger and walked backwards or something.

Not so, says the article, which details the work of Professor Iain Wright. Wright stumbled across the work of John Dee, a scientist during Shakespeare’s time. “I suddenly ran up against this description of a man staring back with amazement at a floating dagger, and of the ‘marvellous glass’ that produced it,” says Wright. He logically goes on to make the case that Shakespeare would have known about such tricks and worked them into plays like Macbeth, not only for the dagger but perhaps for the ghosts themselves.