My class managed to do a Shakespearian tragedy every year in high school. I mean reading one, not acting in one! Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and MacBeth. I aced Hamlet without studying, since my mother read it to me when she was in college. I went on to read King Lear and Othello in college, but that’s about it for my Shakespeare experience. Oh, I saw a few plays, too. But my most vivid Shakespearian memory is how “MacBeth doth murder sleep”... you betcha, when you stay up all night cramming for an exam! Dad was afraid to let me drive to school the next day, but a few cups of coffee kept me going, and I aced the test. It was the last exam of my high school career.

Altogether, I'd have to say MacBeth is my favorite Shakepearian tragedy. I love freaking the kids out with long memorized passages, especially the witches' chant. And it's fun to let the dog out while saying "Out! Out, damned Spot!" Plus, I'm a sucker for a man in a kilt.



The Beatles do Shakespeare (1964)

Lady Macbeth Interpreted by Dame Microsoft Mary. Text-to-speech technology applied to MacBeth. Weird.

Can you name all of Shakespeare’s plays? You have ten minutes! No, I didn’t know all of them.

Lady MacBeth t-shirt, from mental_floss.

Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn and Miss Cellania bubble.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

Hamlet’s soliloquy in l33tsp33k. (via Grow-A-Brain)

Colloquial Shakespeare. You know the phrase, but do you know which of Shakespeare’s plays it comes from? Take the quiz!

Shakespeare's Favorite Formula.

The Shakespearean Insult Kit.

Romeo and Juliet, the text message version.

The Shakespeare Tissue Box Cover.

To Blog or Not To Blog, that’s the question.

THE LIBRARY

(via Old Horsetail Snake)
The football player knew his way around the locker room better than he did the library. So when the librarian saw the gridiron star roaming the stacks of books looking confused, she asked if she could be of help.

"I have to read a play by Shakespeare," he said.

"Which one?" she asked.

He scanned the shelves and responded: "William."

Green Eggs and Hamlet

I ask to be or not to be.
That is the question I ask of me.
This sullied life, it makes me shudder.
My uncle's boffing dear sweet mother.

Would I, could I take me life?
Could I, should I end this strife?
Should I jump out of a plane?
Or throw myself before a train?

Should I from a cliff just leap?
Could I put myself to sleep?
Shoot myself ot take some poison?
Maybe try self immolation?

To shudder off this mortal coil,
I could stab myself with a fencing foil.
Slash my wrists while in the bath?
Would it end my angst and wrath?

To sleep, to dream, now there's the rub.
I could drop a toaster in my tub.
Would all be glad if I were dead?
Could I perhaps kill them instead?

This line of thought takes consideration-
For I'm the king of procrastination.

AUDITIONS

I ran in to Bill the other day and he clearly looked very distraught.

I asked him what  was wrong.  

Bill said, "As you know, I am looking for employment.  I found an ad in the paper for a part in local dinner theater, Shakespeare's  Romeo and Juliet.  I went and tried out for the part of Romeo. 

However, I  failed my audition through a misunderstanding over a simple stage direction.  My copy of the script clearly said, "Enter Juliet from the  rear."

Thought for today: Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.  ~William Shakespeare

humor jokes video funny Shakespere tragedy comedy drama plays theater