We had our last set of shows this weekend. Thank you all for your amazing support! We couldn’t have been a success with you!

This is the second in a series of five back to school articles.

At some point in your school career you will have to write a research paper about Shakespeare or one of his plays.  No doubt you will be pouring over  various version of the plays in your school books, but were you aware that you can get access to the original copies of the plays?  What better way to read the plays than in their original form!  Check out this fantastic website.  Quartos.org A partnership between the Bodleian Library at Oxford University and the Folger Library in Washington D.C., Quartos.org provides access to digital versions of every quarto of Shakespeare’s plays that was published.  They also have links to great web resources like the British Library online, which has tons of material about the bard.

Now at this point you might be asking yourself, “What’s a Quarto?”  In the 17th century books came in three sizes; folios, quartos, and octavos.  The folio was the largest and comprised of full uncut sheets of paper.  A quarto was smaller and the printer got four pages to one sheet of paper.  An octavo was even smaller and got eight sheets to one uncut sheet of paper.  Folios were like big textbooks, quartos were like little paperbacks, and octavos were pamphlets.

(NOTE:  Quartos wereNot every play exists in quarto form.  Check the website before your start your research.)

Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books,

But Love from love, toward school with heavy looks.

2.2 -Romeo & Juliet

Clearly Shakespeare had strong feelings about school, but school doesn’t have to be such a drag this year!  There are tons of great resources to make long work short.  Enjoy this the first post in a series of five on back to school resources.

Got a phone?  Of course you do; you hip kids.  Well there are some really great Apps out for the iPhone (Disclaimer:  This does not represent an endorsement of Apple or its products UNLESS they feel like sponsoring some really great Shakespeare).

First :  Shakespeare (the app) published by Readlle

Its a great little program, and it comes in two flavors Pro, and Free.  Both versions have the texts of all of the plays, even those of questionable authorship.  The sonnets and lyric poems are there too.  Free is everyone’s favorite flavor, but if must there is the Pro version.  Pro has a concordance, facts about the plays, timelines, all sorts of really great stuff.  Pro costs $9.99, which is a bargain when you consider the cheapest annotated complete works is about $50.  Pretty neat.

Yesterday we quickly restaged Twelfth Night in the chapel of the First Congressional Church in Wellfleet. We performed at 7:30pm to an eager group of theater goers and fun was had by all. A big hearty thank you to the church for letting us practice in their basement for the first month or so of our rehearsals! Cheers!

Why is theatre important? This is a question that I have been thinking about a lot lately. In an age of T.V., film and the internet what role does theatre play? I have my own ideas but I’d rather open the forum up to you.

Why do you think theatre is important today?

So what do we do when we’re not running our shows? Having a picnic on burial hill. Victorian style!

The Nurse and Mercutio are best friends...or something.

Hey internet friends!

Check out the review of The Tempest at Wickedlocal.com, and then come down and check out the shows!

If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of seeing the boys do their sword fighting thing, here’s a little taste! This is bit a sampling of all the fun you could have watching us duke it out every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 2pm. Enjoy!

Check out the review we got in the Patriot Ledger!

A traditional production of Shakespeare is successful when the audience is made to forget that the actors portraying literature’s greatest female characters are, in fact, men. The Plimoth Players pull this off nicely.

To get ready for their performances, cast members transformed space inside the plantation’s visitor center into a black box theater. This intimate space was a labor of love for the cast, who can be just inches away from the audience in some of the most crucial moments of the plays.

Often, that audience includes children, like Youd, and the actors embrace bringing them into the action to make the experience more memorable.

“What we really hope, what the young men hope, is that they can be the first wonderful theater experience that a child has,” Pickering said.

That goal may have been achieved with Youd, who was enthralled by the play, and was excited to meet the actors afterward.

But children were not the only fans. A group of college professors in Plymouth attending a conference also praised the production, and some returned for a second show.

“I thought it was exciting that there was a connection between the Pilgrims and Shakespeare. I wouldn’t have put that together,” said Diane Bogard of Austin, Texas.

Bogard loved the show so much, she’ll be bringing her family up from Texas to see a performance later this summer.

For the rest of the article click here.

Don’t forget!
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 2:00pm two of the members of the Plimoth Players demonstrate stage combat sword fighting. It’s a lot of fun to watch and you het to learn how they create all of those exciting fights! Check it out!