Results tagged “shakespeare”

You have to really love Shakespeare to be familiar with Love's Labour's Lost. Although it's one of the Bard's earlier comedies, it's not performed often... probably because it doesn't really end. A man ahead of his time, Billy Shakes ended the play in true cliffhanger fashion, setting things up for a sequel. A sequel that was, legend tells us, allegedly written and performed, but whose script does not survive. (Probably for the best—sequels are never as good anyway. Right, Mannequin: On the Move?)

Performance: Shakesploitation II Iambic Boogaloo (Iron Age Theatre) (Future Performances)

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We at Phillyist love food. And Shakespeare. So when we heard that City Food Tours was teaming with the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre to present a tasting tour in honor of the Bard's birthday, we naturally had to pass our findings on to you—and then we found out the one-time-only tour is completely sold out.

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Going from the title of the show alone, William Shakespeare's Land of the Dead isn't exactly a play you'd expect to take seriously. The script, written by John Heimbuch, is "a true and accurate account of the 1599 zombie invasion at the Globe Theatre," and juggles iambic pentameter with George C. Romero references, often to great comedic effect.

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I am a big fan of Shakespearean plays that are deconstructed and reimagined. So imagine my surprise when I walked into the Arden Theater and saw the cutest Macbeth ever! A stage of laid down newspaper is easily transformed into the Scottish heath and Dunsinane. Pepper's interpretation of Macbeth is both harrowing and adorable, while Mitzie's Lady Macbeth is snuggly and a revelation ("Out damn spot!" takes on a whole new meaning here). The other puppies are unbelievably cute and believably effective as the Scottish thanes. I especially liked the casting of three Siamese cats as the witches. Type-casting? Maybe, but brilliant. Don't miss this!

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Imagine a world where Catholic schoolboys just becoming aware of their sexuality and sexual identity choose to spend their off-hours reading and privately performing Shakespeare rather than playing sports or locking themselves in the bathroom with pornography. Improbable? Absolutely. But it's the world in which Shakespeare's R+J, playwright Joe Calarco's adaptation of what is possibly the world's most famous love story, is set.

Happy birthday Mulder, uh, we mean David!

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What is there to say, really, about any production of Romeo & Juliet that probably hasn't been said already? It is, after all, the first Shakespearean play that most of us are exposed to, and although it's not (at least in my opinion) one of Shakespeare's best works, it's probably his most frequently performed. So the challenge for any theatre company wishing to produce it is how to do like Ezra Pound said and make it new.

There's a reason that nobody really produces Pericles, one of Shakespeare's final plays. And that reason is, to put it bluntly, that Pericles is really stupid. Really stupid. Most directors, producers, and English teachers know this, accept it, and pretend that the play doesn't exist at all. And then there's The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, which decided to revive this forgotten work, using a script developed and adapted by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that cleaned and clarified Shakespeare's original text in order to "[relate] the story more succinctly."

What happened this week in the City of Bloggerly Love...

“Can a computer game make you cry?”

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for now, and rest assured that there are several new shows opening in January. Now, on with the listings!

This week's quote comes from David Sedaris, the writer of The Santaland Diaries, opening this week. It runs in full: "Seven beers followed by two Scotches and a thimble of marijuana and it's funny how sleep comes all on its own." Now, on with the listings! The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) - Melt would flesh solid too too this that, oh! Through December 23. Tickets online. Holiday Show at the Swing Club -...

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Let me just start off by saying that there is a lot of talent onstage during Being Alive. Let me follow that up by saying all the talent in the world can't save a bad show. It's not bad, I think, because Sondheim is some kind of holy, un-adaptable composer, whose music should never, never, ever be taken out of context, as some have suggested. In fact, more than a few revues have been built...

A little while back, we told you about the First Person Story Tour and its colorful "mascot," the Story Tour Van. The Story Tour was a promotion to build up some buzz for the First Person Festival. Well, it's that time. The festival kicks off today with a wide range of events. The events are priced from free to $35 (the two most expensive events include food as part of the ticket price), and there's a bit of something for everyone. The Festival takes place entirely at 2111 Sansom Street, home of the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, so no matter which event you're going to, you'll know where to be, and you won't have to scramble from one location to another when you're going to multiple events.

This week's quote comes from Oscar Wilde, who wrote: "A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal." Now, on with the listings!

The main problem with Shakespeare is that he wrote so darn much. Any group tackling this monstrous body of work in any form is certainly in for a ride. LyricFest's "Biography in Music - Shakespeare" was a fairly successful attempt. The amount of material covered by the program - the life of Shakespeare, readings from his works, and song settings of his works - certainly presents a problem for even the most dedicated programmer. LyricFests's solution of a continuous cycle of biographical reading, play reading, and song was a bit too disjointed and detracted from the overall flow of the concert. I would have preferred a higher ratio of song to reading and more continuous singing. The readings tended to relate somewhat to the upcoming song, but it was not always entirely clear how. The repertoire was well-chosen for the most part and included a wide range of Shakespeare-setters from Verdi to Finzi. I was a bit surprised that the the most famous Shakespeare song, "It was a lover and his lass," only made it into a truncated version in a reading.

(To the Wall Productions) (no future performances); The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (Marathon Theater Collective) (no future performances); The Sustainability Project (Figments, Inc.) (no future performances)