Speaking of Shakspeare movie projects...

Also on my radar this week is a not-yet-funded project to film Love's Labour's Lost.  This one will be set at a boarding school:

Ferdinand, the Head Boy of Navarre Academy, leads three of his comrades in making a chastity vow in order to focus on their studies. However, with the arrival of four new girls at their school, including the Princess of Aquitane and her sultry friend Rosaline, the boys can’t help but quickly fall for each of their new classmates. Meanwhile, their eccentric Spanish teacher, Don Armado, falls for Jaquenetta, the sexy school nurse, but is caught in a love triangle with Costard, the janitor.

I like it so far because it sounds like they can actually keep fairly close to character and plot. It's always a bit disappointing when a modern adaptation finds itself at odds with the script and has to just toss potentially crucial elements of the original out the window.

They do need some help - at the time of this writing they're at less than $5000 of their $25,000 goal.
Check it out!

The Merry Maids of Madness

Well now, this looks interesting.  I'm often sent Kickstarter links for projects that are just getting off the ground, and will take months to see the light of day (if ever). So it was a pleasure to find a new and unusual project that's already funded and well on it's way to being complete.

The Merry Maids of Madness is, "a feature length comedy set in a mental ward starring the women of Shakespeare." Ok, so far I'm interested. Haven't seen that before.

It's got an IMDB page, although there's not much on it other than a cast list (interesting that Kate only merits a minor cast mention). But! Many of these project start out life as stage shows and if you're not lucky enough to be local to them, you'll never get to see them. The fact that they're now in post-production means there's at least a shot that we'll all be able to get a look at the video soon.

Intrigued, I clicked on some of the cast's past work...

...don't do that.  I'm going to pretend I didn't see any of that, and that this project is going to be good.
Here, go read the Kickstarter page for Merry Maids. It looks like more effort went into that than went into Pizza Girl Massacre.

Break a leg, ladies!.

Stop repeating the Shakespeare starlings story. It's not true.

Surely you've heard the story of how the starling was introduced to America? Legend has it that a certain Mr. Eugene Schieffelin of New York was both an avid ornithologist and lover of Shakespeare. So much so, in fact, that he got it into his head to introduce into America all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. In 1890 he introduced with the starling, which is now considered an invasive species and quite a problem.  (He'd actually been introducing a number of other birds since 1860, but most of them did not survive the new environment and are rarely mentioned when telling the story).

The problem is that the story is completely false. Never happened. I have been looking for proof for years, and failed in my mission.  I can readily put my hands on the man's obituary, for Heaven's sake, and it does not mention Shakespeare. Starlings yes, Shakespeare no. He did release the starlings. There's just no reason to believe Shakespeare had anything to do with his decision.

I'm well aware, though, that my failure to find proof doesn't prove anything. I'm not a professional academic, or a researcher. So I turned to those who are.

Reddit has a group called "Ask Historians" which holds for itself a very high degree of proof. Not only do you need to cite sources for everything you state, sometimes people will call into question the validity of your sources. It's great. I've always considered it a "read only" group, because I never thought I could offer anything that would stand up to the rigors of their cross examination.

So I asked them about Shakespeare and the starlings. In that thread you'll find plenty of reading material on the subject of Mr. Schieffelin, starlings, and Shakespeare. If you think to question their research, feel free to jump in. They'll defend it. It's what they do. Nobody there is offering unsubstantiated opinions.

Guess what? They couldn't find any proof either. The one commenter who offered the most research even said, "I never thought to question the story" but quickly discovered that the story must surely be a post-mortem fabrication because the only time Shakespeare's name is ever mentioned with Schieffelin is long after his death, even when starlings play a prominent role in the story.

I'm convinced. The burden of proof has shifted. I have numerous documents from the man's lifetime that never mention him having any obsession with Shakespeare, or that this was his purpose in releasing the starlings. Is it still possible? Technically yes. You'll notice in the comments of that thread (at the time of this writing), that there was a tenuous connection between an 1889 essay on the "Extinction of Shakespeare" that in theory could have been read by Mr. Schieffelin and given him the idea. But why then did no one, including Mr. Schieffelin, ever write it down?

Until someone finds a document from Mr. Schieffelin's lifetime, preferably with some direct connection to him, it is our belief that the starling story is false and people should stop telling it.


EDIT : We all know that "authority" to Google means people link to you. If you've got a permanent Shakespeare site of any sort (i.e. not just Twitter) and would like to see this story debunked once and for all, please consider linking this post. This will help drive it up in Google's rankings so people googling for "Shakespeare starlings" will find the truth. Thanks!