Shakespeare

Julie Kent with students

Dancing With Text

Juliet. Aurora. Desdemona. Julie Kent has portrayed them all, bringing texts to life during a 30 year performing career as one of America’s premier ballerinas. Last year, Kent retired from her position as Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre and has since taken the helm at The Washington Ballet.

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The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Appellations” by Faith Shearin

Juliet famously said of Romeo’s surname, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” which may be true, but also—as the rest of the Bard’s play argued—problematic. So what is in a name? “Appellations” by Faith Shearin (FRiGG) explores what bearing names can have on one’s destiny. Shearin introduces…

Fear and Narrative

Fear and Narrative

There’s a little door in the corner of our almost-three-year-old daughter’s bedroom, and she’s very convinced something is going to come out of it. It isn’t even a door, really—it’s an access panel for getting at the problematic plumbing in the bathroom next door. I’ve come to really, really wish it were somewhere else in…

Round-Down: The Hogarth Series Will Reinvent Shakespeare’s Works As Novels

Round-Down: The Hogarth Series Will Reinvent Shakespeare’s Works As Novels

Jeanette Winterson’s novel The Gap of Time, released only one week ago, is the first book launched of a larger series, called The Hogarth Shakespeare. The series, from the revered Vintage Books, plans to do the very exciting and almost unthinkable: reimagine Shakespeare’s classic plays as novels penned by some of today’s finest modern writers….

Do-Overs: 5 Books that Tell The Untold Story
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Do-Overs: 5 Books that Tell The Untold Story

Some of the best rewrites of classic stories come to us through the author’s imaginings of what the original doesn’t say. Through original work that transcends “fan fiction,” these stand-alone novels and plays work best when they have their own story to tell. Whether this is done through expanding narrative summary into scene, giving complicated back…