H2016: Waiting for Auditions

“Round One” of Hamlet auditions have been announced: April 11-12, I’ll be auditioning actors for the roles of Hamlet and Ophelia. This is a nerve-wracking process, and not just for the actors. What if nobody shows up? Cape Breton’s theatre scene has recently experienced an impressive growth spurt, with the addition of several new theatre…

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Hamlet in Ink: Classics Illustrated

This is another one of my earliest encounters with Hamlet, although I’m having trouble figuring out exactly when I would have run into it. Part of the problem is the convoluted history of just about any major comics publishing line, but particularly the history of Classics Illustrated. From the Wikipedia page: Classics Illustrated is a…

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Ham and Sharp: Hamlet on Stage, 1992

As I have already described, my first exposure to Hamlet (after Games Magazine, and the Black Swan) was almost certainly Zeffirelli’s film version, in 1990. I soon followed it with Kevin Kline’s version (on VHS). But it could be argued that you can’t really experience Hamlet until you’ve seen it performed on the stage. The…

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Ham and Sharp: In the Wings with a Grounded Director

This post is not about Hamlet. Not really. But it’s about Shakespeare, and theatre, and especially my own co-dependency with same. Last night I watched a documentary called Now: In the Wings on a World Stage. The subject is a 2011 world tour of Bridge Theatre’s production of Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes and…

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H2016: The Devil Hath Power

Today, two weeks into my Hamletian blogsperiment, it feels like the time is right to start talking about my own plans for producing the play in 2016. I’ll be revealing my hand very slowly, partly because I know this medium has the potential to generate excitement and suspense amongst the local populace (local, in my case,…

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Ham and Sharp: Under Cover of Darkness

Hamlet was the first play I ever read voluntarily. After becoming intrigued about it through a Games Magazine puzzle, I sought it out during my first year of high school. I was taking English AP, the advanced class, and we had just read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the first of two assigned Shakespeare plays. The…

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Ham and Sharp: First Contact

When I ask students how they first became aware of Hamlet, their answers are vague. Some of them remember seeing the Simpsons parody, while others recall being informed that the plot of The Lion King borrows heavily from something called Hamlet. Mostly, there seems to be a gradual, generalized awareness, like pieces of a vast…

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