diary(?) of a theater artist

“and though she feels as if she’s in a play/she is anyway…” actor/director/shakespeare nerd collecting resources for other shakespeare nerds. ask me anything. oxfordians DNI.

[shaxqueer]

hey, this is my shakespeare sideblog. i’m going to make/reblog original posts with resources that i’ve found over 10+ years of doing shakespeare, whether directing, acting, dramaturgy, fight choreography, or designing.

PRODUCTIONS I’M WORKING ON:

Cymbeline: fight choreographer

Hedda Gabler (pre-production): director

COMING SOON:

Lysistrata?

[lizlemondyke]

it’s funny cuz it’s true

[catcatalpa]

My headcanon ver of hamlet and the rock ver

I think they'd find each other so weird if they met!?

[romanceyourdemons]

last night i dreamed acclaimed actor and director kenneth branagh died in a recreation of the battle of agincourt and i happened to be there at the time, so afterwards the investigator for the death (who was an off brand hercule poirot situation) asked me about it and i said “ken was always drawn to spectacle. he loved that feeling of awe” and i remember thinking, in the dream, what the hell am i doing? since when am i on ken terms with real life oscar winner sir kenneth branagh?? being a heartrendingly present bystander at the moment of his bizarre death doesn’t give me the right to ken him

[classically-lit-memes4u]

“what are you thinking about?” swordfights, next question 

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

love describing classic lit in booktok terms. like omg there is slow burn enemies to lovers and found family, and so much neurodivergent rep :)) it’ll have you crying at 3am. yeah it’s called the brothers karamazov by fydoor dostoyevsky

[maidthings]

"this is unbecoming of me" is genuinely a useful thing to have in your mental toolbox

[fake-lancelot]

[eve-to-adam]

The medieval love bureaucracy: I love you, sign here - 1420 edition

Henry V: You will become my father-in-law today. Charles VI: Well… that’s not exactly what I had in mind for the princess Cath— Henry V, raising his mace: I’ll give you time to get used to the idea. You will become my father-in-law today.

[lipstickhamlet]

i can't fucking deal with toxic fans anymore. if you're still supporting h*nry b*lingbroke honestly just block me. he LITERALLY d*posed richard the second and refuses to ransom edmund mortimer which is,,,, literally so fucking problematic?? plus i heard somewhere he was going to make a voyage to the holy land to wash the blood off his guilty hand but so shaken as he is, so wan with care, he decided not to go which is uhhh,,, fuckin yikes.

[toddsolondz]

when you’re having a laugh with your dad but then you suddenly remember that he’s going to hell

[theprincehamlet]

topical

[toddsolondz]

oh my god hamlet

[jens-holland]

Ok I cracked, here they are

(Third image is Henry IV, I needed to fix her hair. Channeling Jeremy Irons hehe)

[tragedyposting]

Volumnia should be the coveted role of aging Shakespearean actresses the way Lear is for aging Shakespearean actors and yet no one is doing Coriolanus

[tragedyposting]

I mean also women should be playing every male Shakespeare role but that’s somewhat beside the point

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

fully sober in the club making nyt connections hamlet! edition. group the four groups of four!

[homunculus-argument]

Trying to keep myself from going "oh my god you people don' t know anything" by reminding myself that there are surely things that you don't just know, but consider such common knowledge that it wouldn't occur to you at all to consider that I wouldn't know that. I'd ask y'all to share some, but how the fuck would you know what is and isn't common knowledge to anyone else.

[beessswax]

once in a theatre class i was reading a midsummer nights dream with another student and towards the end of the play there’s like a eunuch? she asked what that was and i had a moment of complete bafflement that someone would have never encountered the term before. then i remembered that the sheer amount of fantasy books id consumed in my life was probably what gave me that knowledge

[aviewtodeath]

this fanfic shit is easy

[stellaluna33]

Several times on here I've seen the take "I know local theater is bad and cringey, but you have to support it anyway!" And while I understand what they're getting at, I'm always like, why do you assume it's going to be "bad" just because the artists are members of your own community? I just saw a local production of The Importance of Being Earnest and it was HILARIOUS. Everyone was DELIGHTFULLY funny and we thoroughly enjoyed it! There have been so many times I've been greatly moved by "amateur" or student art, and if you can't allow yourself to appreciate anything but "the Best" (and who decides what "the Best" is anyway? This production of "Earnest" was way funnier than the version that Judy Dench and Rupert Everett were in, as deservedly "famous" as they might be) then you are just being a joyless snob. There's beauty and talent all around you. And if that makes me "easy to please," then well... That means I'm pleased more often! And why should I want to apologize for that?

[prokopetz]

I once caught a local production of Amadeus in a cramped little theatre where Salieri was cast so inappropriately young he looked like a child playing dress-up in his father's clothes and Mozart's actor delivered his manic episodes with such vigor that audience members were catching spittle from the third row, and it was straight up better than the movie.

[halles-comet]

My favorite thing that I learned about The Importance of Being Ernest is Oscar Wilde faced a lot of criticism in 1895 after it premiered for writing something light and funny when there was war and suffering in the world. like we know common themes are found in art throughout time but so are they in art criticism

[halles-comet]

late 19th century english theatre reviewers, apparently