Shakespeare is dead. Long live Shakespeare!

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April 23 marks the 452nd anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth and the 400th anniversary of his death (he lived to age 52 and is widely believed to have been born on the same day that he died). This week, schools in Riverdale and all over the world are honoring the person I like to think of as “the Hercules of Lit.”

Shakespeare himself went to grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, but did not attend university. Despite a limited, albeit very intense classical education — which makes some people doubt he even wrote the plays attributed to him — Shakespeare is the most read and performed playwright in the world.

Such is his popularity that his works have been translated into more than 80 languages, including Klingon, Esperanto and Lingua. Plays like “Hamlet” continue to receive constant performances the world over.

Shakespeare is an acquired taste, like fine wine, opera and cigars, but educators everywhere feel it’s their duty to expose students to his plays. Teaching Shakespeare can be frustrating, as expressed in a poem I wrote a while ago:

Oh, dearest Shakespeare,
Do you have to be so hard?
As an academic person,
I’m supposed to love the Bard.

But here I am at forty-eight
And call myself a “teacher.”
Yet you might say about me that
Shakespeare has yet to reach her.

I did, thank goodness, become a Shakespeare fan!

In fact, I just finished teaching – and enjoying – “Romeo and Juliet,” at Ossining High School, where I teach special education. For a terrific introduction to Shakespeare for high schoolers, I suggest PBS’s “Shakespeare: The Intersection of Art & Life Timeline,” an interactive online offering that includes videos of performances of his plays and sights connected with Shakespeare’s life.

At the Robert J. Christen School (P.S. 81), students were scheduled to celebrate Shakespeare in their English classes on April 22 by reciting memorized excerpts from many of Shakespeare’s plays, accompanied by music. The recitations were inspired by Principal Anne Kirrane’s fond memories of similar recitals of Shakespeare’s words at the boarding school she attended in Ireland.  She calls P.S. 81 “The School of the Arts” and considers its strong arts curriculum her “mission to the school.”

On April 14, Professor Garrett Sullivan from Penn State gave a lecture at Manhattan College called “’How Britain Fights:  Shakespeare and WWII Film Propaganda.”  The American Shakespeare Center’s touring troupe will perform “Romeo and Juliet” this fall at the college.

This month, the College of Mount Saint Vincent’s Red Monkey Theater Group (RMTG) performed “Julius Caesar” in the college’s Cahill Theater, with a cast of eight actors playing multiple roles.  

Says Artistic Director Tal Aviezer, “‘Julius Caesar’ is an irresistible play in an election year, but like all Shakespeare plays, it is fundamentally a story… about the way people briefly seem to dominate and then are swept aside by history.” 

Fonthill Castle, a College of Mount Saint Vincent landmark, once served as the residence of famed 19th-century Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest, who designed it to evoke the Scottish castle of one of his favorite dramatic characters, MacBeth.

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is working with students at the Horace Mann School this week, and students from the lower, middle and upper schools are attending RSC performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. 

Through May 27, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts exhibits  “Shakespeare’s Star Turn in America.” It documents the history of performances of Shakespeare’s plays in North America from colonial times to the present day using materials from the library’s extensive collections. 

Valerie Kaufman is a freelance writer whose website is www.valeriekaufman.com. Point of view is a column open to all.

Shakespeare, PS 81, CMSV, Horace Mann School, Valerie Kaufman

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