So Bill Shakespeare would have been 456 on Thursday, April 23, and under normal circumstances, I know, you would have been enjoying a fat goose and a few tankards of mead with a dozen or so of your besties. But: coronavirus. So now what?
Do not despair. Three nearby Bard-centric theatre companies have your covered.
On Thursday, the Folger Shakespeare Library invites you to take Bill on from all angles in its #ShareYourShakespeare festival. Notwithstanding the title, this is sort of a DIY operation, in which you are invited to do some Shakespearian acting — deliver a sonnet (my favorite is Sonnet CXXX, where the Bard keeps it real) or (with proper social distancing) a scene (the Folger provides one from Lear. You should do it; it will be your only opportunity to threaten to carbonado someone’s shanks.).
Not only that: the Folger invites you to strike a pose out of one of Shakespeare’s plays and take a selfie of it; draw a Shakespearian scene (or paint one, if you have the time); write a sonnet or attend one of the Folger’s Shakespeare lectures, through YouTube or Facebook, on April 23rd.
On Saturday, April 25, the American Shakespeare Center — which has, if anything, raised its profile during this plague by filming live performances and making them available to us — will be having its own #Shakesday Virtual Block Party. This hoo-hah will include virtual dialogues with the ASC repertory company; cake-making, combat stage workshops and something called ruff-making, which appears to be connected with making Elizabethan ruffs for the collar, and has nothing to do with DC Theatre Scene’s founder. Topher Embrey (recently seen in ASC’s production of The Grapes of Wrath) and Lia Wallace will host. The Block Party starts at 2PM on ASC’s Facebook page.
Last, but certainly not least, Shakespeare Theatre Company has issued its #Shakespeare Challenge, in which it invites you to deliver a Shakespearean speech on camera and deliver it to social media. STC Artistic Director Simon Godwin bravely volunteers his own effort (the prologue to Romeo and Juliet) and on the side you’ll see actors delivering their own favorite Bard monologues – and some surprising non-actors at work as well, including playwright Lauren Gunderson and Board of Trustees Vice-President (and big-time trial lawyer) Abbe Lowell.
Check out the efforts of Michael Urie, who does Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech as Arnold Beckoff (from Torch Song Trilogy) – the equivalent of Willie Masconi hitting the 7 off the 5 to sink the 2.
Don’t know which speech to post? Draw some inspiration from DC Theatre Scene’s “Shakespeare’s Greatest Speeches”. And don’t forget to check out James Konicek’s rendition of the “Band of Brothers” speech from Henry V.
