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“What’s wrong now?” The exasperation in Thea’s voice echoed around the auditorium. As soon as her words broke through the scene, the two actors in front of her retreated to opposite corners of the stage like boxers who had just heard the bell. Thea couldn’t help but sigh as sheContinue Reading

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Words are symbols of other things. This word tree lacks real bark. Fundamentalists, dogmatists, literalists, densely misperceive a direct relation, an inviolable link, between some sole mental concept, inspired by a word, and an actual thing. There is no literal truth. A will never equal C, much less be. WordsContinue Reading

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So where are all the fools and fairies? Quince, you string the lights and rig the gauzy scrim. Titania, shimmer all your sylvan innuendo in and vary like an otherworldly whim or a thought before the sin. Rustics, do some heavy lifting within that copse of wizened, watching oak. ImproviseContinue Reading

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My father was a Shakespearean actor. He played Macbeth. My father is elderly and not allowed in New York. He was called on the phone by Maxine Doyle. We used an old telephone with a plastic receiver.—is this Pat Barba?My father held the phone and stood by the glass. WeContinue Reading

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2122 Annual ConferenceShakespeare Societies of the Western World June 11 – 14, 2122Laughlin, NVGolden Nugget Casino24 Karat Conference Centre Featured Papers:Shakespeare: The Eternal Question: Cat Lover or Dog Aficionado? 5 Arguments in Favor of the Canine Guest Speaker, Hugo “Hotspur” Larke, PhD Sponsored by the Disney-Folger Library Celebrating the GoldenContinue Reading

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I crept up to him while he slept and studied the twitches his dreams made beneath his frail eyelids. He should have sensed my stare. Soon I knew if he was being chased by wings and needles, or if he was lost in a flailing bark inside the snapping prongsContinue Reading

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We set ourselves out at dawn when there’s nothing but brinesoak’d air and heath. The least weird of our sisters takes out a green Crayola marker and colored in a burnt orange leaf this morning. The ink was too thin: too much water, not enough pigment, running black between theContinue Reading