There's never been a period when Shakespeare was out of fashion. In his lifetime he was incredibly successful, and soon after his death his works were published to the world. Within these pages you'll find a new interpretation of Shakespeare's stages, a play on words, which sheds light on the colorful and exuberant world of Shakespeare's life and times. You won't find the sainted genius--solemn with quill and ink-stained hand. High of brow he may have been, but never high-brow. Never the snooty artist, locked away from the world, Shakespeare was in the thick of it. Much Ado About Shakespeare brings you the highs and lows, the tongue in cheek, the truth and imagination . . . the fantastical world of William Shakespeare in his own words and through the magnificent art of Donovan Bixley.
When a directorial debut turns deadly, it falls to costume designer Charlotte Fairfax to unmask the culprit in award-winning author Elizabeth J. Duncan’s third Shakespeare in the Catskills mystery Charlotte Fairfax has another murder on her hands as she prepares for the latest performance of the Catskills Shakespeare Theater Company, Much Ado About Nothing. The company’s steady growth enables them to cast star British actress Audrey Ashley, who arrives on scene to play the lead role of Beatrice. But things immediately get more complicated when Audrey insists the company replace the current director with new, up and coming British director Edmund Albright. Edmund plans to change the popular romantic comedy, which alienates several people associated with the production. And the list of people he upsets only grows: the laid off former director, the hotel owner’s secretary, and even Audrey herself. Just as Edmund’s plans are about to come to fruition, his body is discovered on his sofa, holding a gun in his hand. His death is quickly ruled a suicide but Charlotte thinks otherwise. Why would Edmund, on the brink of greatness, kill himself? With a whole cast of characters to investigate, Charlotte is determined to unmask each one before it’s final curtain call on the whole production.
Celebrate Tina Fey's Mean Girls with this illustrated adaptation of the cult classic script, retold in Shakespearean verse by the best-selling author of William Shakespeare's Star Wars. On Wednesdays we array ourselves in pink! Mean Girls gets an Elizabethan makeover in this totally fetch comedy of manners about North Shore High’s queen bees, wannabes, misfits, and nerds. Written in the style of the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls tells the story of Cady Heron’s rise from home-schooled jungle freak to one of the most popular girls in school. Every scene and line of dialogue from the iconic script is reimagined in authentic Shakespearean rhyme, meter and stage directions, complete with dramatic asides from Janis, Damian, Gretchen, and Karen. By the end, you’ll be surprised that Shakespeare didn’t pen this classic story of rivalries, betrayal, jealousy, obsession, and fastidious rule-making about when one can and cannot wear sweatpants.
“[Ron Rosenbaum] is one of the most original journalists and writers of our time.” –David Remnick In The Shakespeare Wars, Ron Rosenbaum gives readers an unforgettable way of rethinking the greatest works of the human imagination. As he did in his groundbreaking Explaining Hitler, he shakes up much that we thought we understood about a vital subject and renews our sense of excitement and urgency. He gives us a Shakespeare book like no other. Rather than raking over worn-out fragments of biography, Rosenbaum focuses on cutting-edge controversies about the true source of Shakespeare’s enchantment and illumination–the astonishing language itself. How best to unlock the secrets of its spell? With quicksilver wit and provocative insight, Rosenbaum takes readers into the midst of fierce battles among the most brilliant Shakespearean scholars and directors over just how to delve deeper into the Shakespearean experience–deeper into the mind of Shakespeare. Was Shakespeare the one-draft wonder of Shakespeare in Love? Or was he rather–as an embattled faction of textual scholars now argues–a different kind of writer entirely: a conscientious reviser of his greatest plays? Must we then revise our way of reading, staging, and interpreting such works as Hamlet and King Lear? Rosenbaum pursues key partisans in these debates from the high tables of Oxford to a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in a strip mall in the Deep South. He makes ostensibly arcane textual scholarship intensely seductive–and sometimes even explicitly sexual. At an academic “Pleasure Seminar” in Bermuda, for instance, he examines one scholar’s quest to find an orgasm in Romeo and Juliet. Rosenbaum shows us great directors as Shakespearean scholars in their own right: We hear Peter Brook–perhaps the most influential Shakespearean director of the past century–disclose his quest for a “secret play” hidden within the Bard’s comedies and dramas. We listen to Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, as he launches into an impassioned, table-pounding fury while discussing how the means of unleashing the full intensity of Shakespeare’s language has been lost–and how to restore it. Rosenbaum’s hilarious inside account of “the Great Shakespeare ‘Funeral Elegy’ Fiasco,” a man-versus-computer clash, illustrates the iconic struggle to define what is and isn’t “Shakespearean.” And he demonstrates the way Shakespearean scholars such as Harold Bloom can become great Shakespearean characters in their own right. The Shakespeare Wars offers a thrilling opportunity to engage with Shakespeare’s work at its deepest levels. Like Explaining Hitler, this book is destined to revolutionize the way we think about one of the overwhelming obsessions of our time.
"Much Ado About Baseball is the best children's book I've read in the past 10 years!" -Brad Thor, New York Times bestselling author of the Scot Harvath series "A moving tale of baseball, magic, and former rivals who come together to solve a problem." -Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW In this companion novel to Midsummer's Mayhem, math and baseball combine with savory snacks to cause confusion and calamity in the town of Comity. Twelve-year-old Trish can solve tough math problems and throw a mean fastball. But because of her mom's new job, she's now facing a summer trying to make friends all over again in a new town. That isn't an easy thing to do, and her mom is too busy to notice how miserable she is. But at her first baseball practice, Trish realizes one of her teammates is Ben, the sixth-grade math prodigy she beat in the spring Math Puzzler Championships. Everyone around them seems to think that with their math talent and love of baseball, it's only logical that Trish and Ben become friends, but Ben makes it clear he still hasn't gotten over that loss and can't stand her. To make matters worse, their team can't win a single game. But then they meet Rob, an older kid who smacks home runs without breaking a sweat. Rob tells them about his family's store, which sells unusual snacks that will make them better ballplayers. Trish is dubious, but she's willing to try almost anything to help the team. When a mysterious booklet of math puzzles claiming to reveal the "ultimate answer" arrives in her mailbox, Trish and Ben start to get closer and solve the puzzles together. Ben starts getting hits, and their team becomes unstoppable. Trish is happy to keep riding the wave of good luck . . . until they get to a puzzle they can't solve, with tragic consequences. Can they find the answer to this ultimate puzzle, or will they strike out when it counts the most?
Fledgling playwright Will Shakespeare and Symington Smythe, ostler and would-be thespian, and are now firmly ensconced in their theater company . . . But due to the plague, all of London's theaters have been closed, its players now broke, forcing our intrepid duo to seek employment in other lines of work--Smythe smithing and Will poeting. Then a murder rocks all of London. Shakespeare and Smythe decide to solve the crime, but they must rely on their wits to survive both the conspiriacies and the cutthroat business of Elizabethan theater
Sparkling with the witty dialogue between Beatrice and Benedict, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare's most enjoyable and theatrically successful comedies. This edition offers a newly edited text and an exceptionally helpful and critically aware introduction. Paying particular attention to analysis of the play's minor characters, Sheldon P. Zitner discusses Shakespeare's transformation of his source material. He rethinks the attitudes to gender relations that underlie the comedy and determine its view of marriage. Allowing for the play's openness to reinterpretation by successive generations of readers and performers, Zitner provides a socially analytic stage history, advancing new views for the actor as much as for the critic.
The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series, now in a dazzling new series design The Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With stunning new covers designed by Manuja Waldia, definitive texts, and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come. This edition of Much Ado About Nothing is edited with an introduction by Peter Holland. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
