

There are plays I remember not loving the first time. Throughout the year, the project will include videos of actors performing speeches, images from theatrical productions, artwork inspired by Shakespeare, and introductions from Shakespearean scholars. In addition to the written word, the Shakespeare 2020 Project will be a multimedia experience. I’m eager to see how the Folger Editions vary from other editions I’ve encountered.
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I will be reading the Folger Shakespeare Library Editions of the plays, which are also available free online. But it is possible, which is an important start. Live theater is often expensive, and good luck finding a local production of King John in most communities. While I agree Shakespeare is best in performance, it’s not always possible to see his plays-and certainly not his complete works-on stage. One note about the act of reading: It is frequently said that Shakespeare is meant to be performed, not read. The schedule offers at least one day’s break between works and avoids many U.S. The Winter’s Tale is scheduled in December, as winter begins.Henry V is on the schedule from October 24-31, to coincide with St.A Midsummer Night’s Dream is scheduled during midsummer.Julius Caesar will be read from March 14-19, to coincide with the ides of March.(Besides Twelfth Night, the other exception to chronological order was moving The Merry Wives of Windsor to fall between the Henry IV) I moved Twelfth Night forward in the schedule to coincide with the feast of Twelfth Night on January 5.Along the way, the plays will match the calendar when possible: In other words, you’ll encounter the tragedies in roughly the order Shakespeare wrote them, the comedies in roughly the order Shakespeare wrote them, and so on. The schedule of plays mixes comedies, histories, tragedies, and poems in rough presumed chronological order of composition within genre. This might be an opportunity to read something you haven’t read before, or to revisit an old favorite. In fact, people are encouraged to join for just a few plays or poems if they want. No one who joins in should feel guilty if they don’t read everything. Reading these works together throughout 2020 will give us all the opportunity to both become familiar with plays and poems we don’t know well and revisit our favorites.Īt the same time, the Shakespeare 2020 Project isn’t about pressure. Like many people, I have my favorite Shakespeare plays, but there are many I have only read once (in 1999) and have never seen performed. If I am interested in revisiting Shakespeare, I suspect there are others like me. These were the seeds for what became the Shakespeare 2020 Project. The honest and embarrassing answer is no, I haven’t read Shakespeare in depth for years, and-other than brief passages or seeing the occasional show-I haven’t revisited most of Shakespeare’s plays or poems since 1999.īut for the past year, I’ve been planning to reread the complete works and to invite anyone who was interested to join along. People often ask whether I read Shakespeare frequently to maintain my Shakespearean chops.

Since 2012, my writing career has been built on works that borrow Shakespeare’s style-as well as I can-in books like the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series, the Pop Shakespeare series, and MacTrump. Having loved Shakespeare since being introduced to Othello (and iambic pentameter) in my freshman year English class in high school, and having read many of Shakespeare’s plays in high school and college, I wanted to complete the cycle. I first read Shakespeare’s complete works in 1999, a year after graduating from college. There are always new things to discover in Shakespeare, and my experience of his plays changes as I age. As the author of books that retell Star Wars in the style of Shakespeare, I am often asked, “If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only take the complete works of Shakespeare or the Star Wars movies, which would you want?” The choice has never been difficult: Shakespeare, hands down.
