A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
OTTERBEIN UNIVERISTY
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTES:
Will Shakespeare (playwright): This is a new experience for me, I’ve never been asked to write anything for a program before. We never did programs at the Globe. Printing was expensive, and only about three in every twenty folks knew how to read. Anyway, the bloody director was too lazy to write up his program notes, so they rang me up and offered me the space. Giddy-up.
• I recently got on the World-Wild Spiderwebs (did I get that right?) and was gobsmacked to find my name out there. My plays, still being done, in over 100 languages, with spin-off graphic novels and movies? I got to admit that, after that, I had to take a knee for a minute. Once I caught my breath, I totally went down the rabbit-hole on myself. What I found jibed pretty well, but a few things got missed and mixed-up over the years, and I’d to like to set them right-side up, me having been there and all:
• After the spiderwebs, I got myself on The Tweeter (did I get that right?) and got hit by a brick: lots of folks were chirping me that they can’t understand my plays, or worse, some of them actually think they’re not smart enough to enjoy them. Then the penny dropped, turns out the folks who aren’t understanding them aren’t hearing them in performance, they’re reading them. I just don’t get it, why would anyone who didn’t have to, read a play? You like music, right? Ok, how often do you sit around reading it?
• My plays were meant to be entertainment, not ‘High-Art.’ In my day, ‘Art’ didn’t put food on the table, and, the fact is, a guy’s gotta eat, you know? My yardstick: if people are engaged, then the Theatre is doing it’s work. My philosophy: happy audiences make empathetic humans. That’s how I rolled at the Globe, and it’s how I’m doing it now too, ghostwriting for all the trickling services you’ve got today. No reality TV, though. While I don’t consider myself an artiste, I’ve got my pride, and there are some lines a guy just don’t cross.
• I get asked a lot of about the favourite things I’ve written (is not Hamlet, fyi). For me it’s not so much the plays as it is the words that are still around: bedroom, eyeball, excitement, generous, hurry, invitation, lonely, road. ‘Road’ was really big for me. I’ve got a soft spot for alligator, but, frankly, I was kinda surprised that one took off.
• OK, pet peeve, here, and personal favour: if you happen to know any Shakespeare elites, I’m begging you, please (heck, pretty please with sugar on it, and I promise to sign all the merch, and take the selfie) ask them to knock it off already with all this, ‘The Bard’ stuff? It makes me feel like a poser. In my day-to-day life most folks called me by my last name, mostly, or simply, Will.
• And, speaking of my name, what’s the deal with folks saying I wasn’t the author of my own plays? That I wasn’t intelligent enough, or educated enough because I only went through grammar school. Yeah, I only went through grammar school, but it wasn’t reading, ‘Verily, Hastings doth run. Espy how he doth run. Run Hastings, run.’ I was learning how to read, write, and speak Latin. It was 184 years before anyone started carping, then one day, poof, people start calling me a fraud. Not going to lie, that stings a bit. It doesn’t really matter though; the plays are out there, folks are still diggin’ on them, and it ain’t like anybody’s collecting residuals. In the end, it’s still my name on ‘em, and that’s enough for me.
• Apropos of nothing, dress codes are for suckers. You don’t have to dust of the Sunday doublet and hose to go to the theatre. Wear whatever ya want, just make sure you got shoes on, and the fardels are covered up.
• Finally (and you know who you are), I’d like my skull back, please.