Ingenious(?) Shakespeare on Film

There's certainly no shortage of these lists, but I haven't linked to one in a while.   Flavorwire delivers their list of Top 10 Ingenious Shakespeare Adaptations, but as always I'm never really sure what criteria these sites use for such a list.

All the usual suspects are on this one, and probably nothing that long time readers hadn't seen mentioned before (Scotland, PA, which I still haven't seen, being the most unknown).  But how do you make a list that includes both McKellen's Richard III and Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet with 10 Things I Hate About You, O, and Strange Brew?

I'd love it if somebody made a list with a constraint that we could all agree upon, like "Shakespeare adaptations as musicals" or something.  Hint hint, content authors.  Get to work.

The Real Housewives of Shakespeare

This hysterical production from the Great River Shakespeare Festival is making the rounds on Twitter.  I gave it a pass at first since I never watched the original tv show and figured that I wouldn't get most of the jokes.

Wrong!



If you've not seen it yet, do what I did -- try to identify all the wives before they're introduced.  They had me at "what is that knocking WHAT IS THAT KNOCKING!?  :) :) :)

P.S. - I'm going to let Juliet's use of "like" slip by...once.  That was like, like, fingernails on a blackboard.

He's Mine, Now.

So this story is only vaguely related to Shakespeare, but anybody that knows me will appreciate it.

See if you can follow this.  I have a "work wife".  This woman and I had worked closely on a team of just three people and it didn't take long for the usual workplace flirting to get kicked high enough into the stratosphere that everybody just started referring to us as a work couple.  No biggie.  I'm married, she's not, my wife knows about my work wife.  It's fun.  Work wife meanwhile has started dating one of the new employees.

Yesterday, out of the blue, one of my coworkers forwards me an event notification for a Shakespeare Open Mic night.  She apparently missed that it happened a month ago.  The particular event was at a cafe in Salem, MA, for Shakespeare's Birthday (I've been to it).  I appreciate the notification.  Like I've said before, I like that people spot Shakespeare things and send them to me.

Anyway, this new employee, who is dating my work wife, suddenly pops his head over the wall and says, "Wait, what's this you're talking about?  Really?  That sounds cool."

I try to decide if I'm being mocked.  He assures me that no, he's into Shakespeare.  He's one of those "really didn't like it in high school until I finally got a teacher that showed us how awesome he is" kids. Now he wants to talk about Shakespeare and asks about where in town he can see a good show.

I give him my usual warning - "You sure you want to open this door?  You've heard what happens when you start me talking about Shakespeare, right?"

At this point along comes work wife to see why the two men in her life are chatting.  I let her know that yes, we're talking about Shakespeare, and I'm not giving him back.  He's mine now.
We start talking about the obvious option, Commonwealth Shakespeare in the Park (doing Coriolanus this year).  I tell him that I go every year, we make a picnic out of it, get some PF Changs, couple bottles of wine, hang out on a nice summer night.  He decides that now it sounds even more convincing.

I came home and told my real wife that this summer we're double dating. :)  How's that for awkward?  Maybe my real wife and my work wife can hang out and chat while I talk Shakespeare with my work wife's boyfriend. :) :) :) :)