If Shakespeare had written Star Wars...

via amazon.com

One author, Ian Doescher, has envisioned the entire Star Wars trilogy as triad of Shakespearean plays, available for purchase on amazon.com here.

If you want to take a look inside the cover, brainpickings.org did a small article on the books, which include a few pictures and passages to peruse.

Something tells me that, as long as Leia is written as a strong female, our own Lily Stockbridge would be all over this.

Happy birthday to the Bard!

To celebrate Shakespeare's 450th birthday, take the quiz to test your knowledge of the Bard's work!

How NOT to play Ophelia

Speaking of binge watching BBC shows, if you're a theatre geek (especially of the Shakespeare variety) and you have never seen Slings and Arrows, get thee to Netflix and fix that post haste!

Playing Shakespeare by Gandhi and Friends!

If you're an actor in the mood for binge-watching dated BBC shows, this is for you.

Patrick Stewart, Ben Kingsley, Ian Mckellen and Judy Dench smoke on TV in bad 80s hairstyles and teach us how to act the Bard's work. Mark it well, young players!

Think you got "swagger"? Well, you can thank Shakespeare...

... Because he invented the word to use in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

via fremdeng.ning.com

What a cheater! Who does this dude think he is, just making up gibberish because he can't find the right words for what he wants to say? No wonder people think his plays are so hard to understand!

But when you take a closer look into the words that he jumbled together, you realize that he is actually believed to have invented over 1,700 of the words that we use today. Somehow, he had such a vast effect over the entire English language that helped to create a sizable chunk of it. And not just words, but common phrases, too.

via Becky/tumblr

Kinda impressive. And shows that this heightened language that so many claim is difficult to impossible to understand is actually much more familiar than we think. 

Meet the WilliamWorld Players! Today: Ben Lundergaard

Ben Lundergaard is a WilliamWorld rookie in many ways. Prior to joining us this summer he has never before performed the work of the Bard nor done any kind of acting before nor had any particular interest in the work or life of William Shakespeare. 

But after stopping by the faire to give a ride to his sister Viola, he caught a glimpse of our lovely Lily Stockbridge and the investment banker decided to give WilliamWorld a chance. Lord what fools these mortals be...

Ben Lundergaard is played by Alex Galick.

Alex Galick has several years of professional acting experience including repertory seasons with the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival, as well as extensive on-camera experience.

Meet the WilliamWorld Players! Today: Tori Steppinfeld

Tori Steppinfeld wears many hats in WilliamWorld. last summer alone she was in charge of Costumes, makeup, hair, Pony wrangling and laundry. We hope she has another stellar season and fully recovers from last summer’s nervous breakdown.

Tori Steppinfeld is played by Kristina Rodby.

Kristina Rodby is an actress in Minneapolis. Among her many acting roles, she does crisis training with the Crisis Company.