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Romeo, I thought I knew you. You were a sap for pretty girls (or any girl, really), a little melodramatic, but sharp-witted, and also my best friend, the only one who always understood my puns, who always understood me. When you refused to fight, I thought I understood; Tybalt’s aContinue Reading

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language-less, a monster – Troilus and Cressida Athena loves Ulysses for his guile, Achilles for his prowess, does not love quiet Ajax, though he grows like a tree towards Olympus. What patron will visit Ajax in his tent at night and accompany the mammoth body, oiled and scraped, as itContinue Reading

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The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.An evil soul producing holy witnessIs like a villain with a smiling cheek. . . . Antonio in The Merchant of Venice Study history and see the way partisans associate rivals with the devil and themselves always with the divine. They can proclaimContinue Reading

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Oh, noblest of efforts by novices this spring evening not gone unnoticed. Such potent nouns summoned to play at names— monotony, tears, regret— & verb games: present tense, past tense, return present tense— with echoes of Romeo’s dawning sense; with deep down inside, inside my heart doubling the mind’s painContinue Reading

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Shall I go win my daughter to thy will? – Richard III I think of Elizabeth, Edward’s daughter, that pretty box for reconciling hopes. She never is onstage except in the mouths of those who bid on her. Here is a play with ghosts, two princes locked in a tower.Continue Reading

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Fair ones change their skins to change their songs. Dare you shed false love to mate true peer? Give your heart, as hard as art is long? Poor tunes assail you; still you say, play on! Finer melodies shall scale your ear. Fair ones change their skins to change theirContinue Reading

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If you watch a lot of tv, especially critically acclaimed, you might come to suspect that a woman is a pair of tits attached to broken, a hurt circuit flipped again and again. It’s like we get written into believing we are the worst thing ever done to us. SoContinue Reading

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Editor’s note: in order to preserve the author’s formatting, the piece is presented here as a PDF document. John Sullivan was an ACTF Playwriting finalist, received the ‘Jack Kerouac Literary Prize,’ the ‘Writers Voice: New Voices of the West’ Award, AZ Arts Fellowships (Poetry & Playwriting), an Artists Studio CenterContinue Reading

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Who loved best? Was she Goneril, Regan or Cordelia? Oh Cordelia! Your unspoken love Lear couldn’t feel. You didn’t flatter your father, but fought your wicked sisters to win back your father’s land. You refused to color your feelings, as you were honest and virtuous, unlike your greedy and cruelContinue Reading