Shakespeare Reimagined

Shakespeare is timeless, his plays a testament to the enduring power of storytelling. 

In his thirty-six plays, running across genres with exquisite balance through 14 comedies, 10 histories, and 11 tragedies, there are few themes, narratives, or even moments of the human experience that the Bard does not address in full. It's a truly stunning output and collection of literary expression, and more than four hundred years later, the drama lives on.

Derivative work from Shakespeare's stories and themes is another rich layer to William's influence, and this year's release of the Chloe Zhao's film version of Hamnet, from the brilliant novel by Maggie O'Farrell, is just the latest contribution to the cottage industry of reimagining Shakespeare. O'Farrell's novel published in 2021 became a true literary sensation, and justifiably so. With layers of subtext, not the least of which is the subtle connection between the name "Hamnet" and "Hamlet," the Danish prince at the center of one of his most revered plays, the story "behind the story" of the untimely, tragic death of the playwright's son was a beautiful and heart wrenching drama all by itself.

Another recent contribution to the genre comes from a Colorado author and teacher who happens to be a former colleague of mine. Joel Morris, Ph.D. from Northwestern, has written a fascinating prequel of sorts to Shakespeare's diabolical Macbeth, telling the story of a young Lady Macbeth ten years before the dawn of the play. The book All Our Yesterdays: a Novel of Lady Macbeth is a USA Today bestseller and was winner of the Colorado Book Award for historical fiction. The highly favorable reviews tout the book for its incredible imagination and deep layers of historical knowledge. As an English teacher, Morris has filled the work with many literary Easter eggs, which add to the inventive story.

Fans of the Bard and of retellings like Hamnet should certainly consider exploring the story behind Lady Macbeth.

Stop Reading Shakespeare in Schools

My unpopular, even blasphemous, opinion: High school students should not read Shakespeare plays independently or out loud while studying the plays in school.

Now, the caveat to that controversial take is my reference to "studying the plays." High school students should most certainly study Shakespeare in their English classes. Whether they do so every year or at select levels, I have no doubt that a high school education should include a comprehensive experience with Shakespeare's work, including a deep dive into at least one full play. It's the reading of the text that I am addressing. Plays are written, but they are spoken word -- they are meant to be heard and performed, not simply read.

With that in mind, I will assert that the two worst ways to teach Shakespeare are to assign the students to read entire scenes or acts at home, or to hand out books to the kids and have them read the play out loud to the class. And don't even get me started on the practice of students trying to "act out" a scene in the course of reading the play. The Bard's plays are in many ways the pinnacle of theatre, and they are meant to be performed by trained actors who have internalized the roles, the cadence, the subtext, the essence of the scenes.

Shakespeare's plays must be experienced in all their "drama," and high school students unfamiliar with and flummoxed by the original text will not be able to provide the rich experience which enables an audience to appreciate the play. That is why I generally use audio tapes from professional performances as our class follows the written text. Too often, teachers will use film versions to "teach," but doing so separates students from the text, which is the essence of what English class is about. Just watching a play leaves far too much unavailable to students -- they simply miss the point.

Now, of course, students will read parts of the text independently, and students can certainly be asked to learn a part of the play and read it aloud or even perform it in class. The soliloquies are excellent for giving students an opportunity to truly internalize, to "own," a part of the play. If we are going to truly teach Shakespeare's works, we need to get away from simply assigning the pages and setting students up to fall short in their appreciation of truly great works of literature.

I went to the wrong college

As we head into springtime, and decision day for high school seniors approaches, I've been thinking about the discussions I've had with students over the years as they receive news on acceptances, deferrals, and rejections. Of course there would be talk of dream schools and reach schools and safety schools. And I would try to emphasize the practical ideas of the "right school," ... with the caveat that "you can always transfer." Granted, that's not what any teenager wants to hear. So, I would also share with my students the story of how I got into my dream school -- the only school I ever wanted or applied to -- and how that wasn't quite the right place for me.

“I went to the wrong college.”

It was never even a doubt that I was going to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign because I’d been going to football games with my dad there for years, and my mom went there, and for a high achieving student at a small little Catholic school in southern Illinois, the U of I was pretty much the obvious choice. Just me and about 36,000 students (though it has now just passed 50K).

In reality I should have gone to a small liberal arts school where I wouldn’t have become lost amidst all the distractions. I should have gone to Wash-U in St. Louis or perhaps Northwestern or definitely Miami of Ohio, though I’m probably overestimating my brain and credentials. For, even going to a school like DePauw in Indiana, where I had a potential opportunity to keep playing soccer, would have been a really good fit for me. A small school with smaller classes and, perhaps, a better opportunity at a more cohesive sense of community might have kept me more focused on the reason we go to universities — educating ourselves. After being a straight A student my entire life, I graduated from my program in secondary education with a none-too-impressive 2.9 GPA. Yep, I went to the wrong college.

Read the rest of the story on my Medium page ...

A great Rom-Com you probably missed

When I started this blog almost twenty years ago, it was just a hodge-podge of topics I found interesting - which, to be honest, is what it has remained. One of my first posts was a quick review of a really fun movie my wife and I watched on DVD. It was a rom-com starring a 48-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer and a 37-year-old Paul Rudd, with a whimsically wacky cameo role from Tracey Ullman, as well as the big screen debut from a young adorable Saoirse Ronan. It's called I Could Never Be Your Woman, a terrible title, but relevant and apt, especially because the excellent groove from White Town is on the soundtrack.

I recently thought of the film again when it popped up in an article about great movies you've probably never seen. The movie is now available on PrimeVideo, and we watched it again last night. It definitely holds up all these years later. Here's my original review:

It seems somewhat surprising that a movie from the writer-director of both Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless could go straight to DVD, but that's the case with Amy Heckerling's I Could Never Be Your Woman. Great movie, bad title, unfortunate turn of events regarding its release. The movie, which stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd, is a satirical romantic comedy about about a forty-something Hollywood writer/single mom falling for the twenty-something star of her hit - but fading - sitcom. As romantic-comedy it is pretty standard entertainment, but as a satire of contemporary American society via Hollywood stereotypes, it is, in a word, hilarious.

Heckerling's plot and dialogue are every bit is entertaining, realistic, perceptive, and funny as her best known movies. Pfeiffer is engaging as always, and Rudd is hysterical. The movie is also a great start for young actress Saoirse Ronan who "wowed" everyone with her Golden Globe nominated performance in Atonement. The satire of contemporary music via Ronan singing altered versions of hit pop songs is a highlight of the movie. Additionally, Tracy Ulmann is featured throughout the movie as "Mother Nature" who converses with Pfeiffer about the pitfalls of aging. It is mildly amusing criticism of the aging Baby Boom generation and its obsession with staying young.

Apparently, the film was originally scheduled for release in 2005, but was bumped repeatedly until it was shelved. Various explanations include mismanagement from its small indie producer, conflict over financing and marketing from major studios, opposition to the satire that hit too close to home in Hollywood (this one seems hard to believe), and simple unfortunate twists of fate. It's a shame that a satirical gem like this can be shelved while mindless and poorly written movies such as "My Bosses Daughter" or "What Happens in Vegas" are released and endlessly hyped. Regardless of its past, this movie is quite entertaining, and it's worth renting.

An Artful Trip to Boston

I've been thinking about my arts-focused writing recently, and I revisited this piece from a few years ago. After a wonderful trip to Boston for an art exhibit, I put this piece together, which I think reads quite nicely. Despite pitches to numerous publications, I was never able to place it, so I posted it on my Medium page.  Still, it's a pretty nice piece and a great memory, so I thought I'd repost.

We went to Boston for a date with abstract expressionist Cy Twombly, and we almost came home with early modernist Marc Chagall. It all started with an art review by Sebastian Smee of the Washington Post. One of my favorite art critics, Smee profiled “Cy Twombly: Making Past Present,” the career retrospective on Twombly at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and he grabbed my attention when he wrote, “I’ve been waiting half my life for this show. It’s magnificent.” I’d barely finished telling my wife how I wished I could just hop on a plane and fly cross country for an art exhibit before she was online checking ticket prices. Soon our plans for spring break became a walking tour of Boston’s art scene.

Flying overnight to Boston on Monday, we were fortunate to get an early check in at The Seaport Hotel on the Waterfront, a perfect launching point for various jaunts around Beantown. Because the Boston MFA is closed on Tuesday, we had a day to explore, beginning with breakfast at Flour, a bakery and coffee shop that’s become a Boston institution under James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Joanne Chang. It’s easy to access with nine locations, and Flour’s simple, savory breakfast egg sandwich with crispy bacon, warmed us alongside a rich cappuccino, though it was tough to walk away from the morning buns.

Boston is so walkable that on our way back to the hotel, we were hardly surprised to discover the Institute of Contemporary Art across the street. The Institute, housed in a modernist architectural work of art on the water, features a third floor sitting room with exquisite views of the harbor. Inside we lucked upon the Maria Berrio exhibit “Children’s Crusade,” and her work alone was worth the trip. Berrio crafts huge paintings through a collage of carefully torn Japanese paper and watercolor. From across the room, the images almost appear to be photos. Her current exhibit honoring the struggles of migrants, especially women and children, evokes contemplation of spirituality and social justice.




Wandering through Chinatown later, we ended up so close to Boston Commons that we made an obligatory visit to the new sculpture “The Embrace,” unveiled early this year on the weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This incredible bronze piece, memorializing the hug between Dr. King and his wife after he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, definitely raised some eyebrows when it was installed. In pictures, the sculpture of arms embracing can seem odd. But in person, it’s stunning work, a testament to the incredible power of MLK and Coretta Scott King. While crossing the Commons back toward the North End, the afternoon became a fortuitous visit to a cozy yet elegant gallery on the famed Newbury Street.

The Galerie d’Orsay, housed in a classic brownstone, caught our eye with three Marc Chagall lithographs visible from the street. Upon entering the gallery, the stunning street art of Sen 1 drew us in. Hanging next to a Lichtenstein and Warhol, the frenzied graffiti of a gritty urban backdrop splashed with color reflects the rough vibrant life of the people who inhabit its streets. A Chagall series on the circus ran across the opposite wall, subtly complementing the pop art in the room. Billed as a gallery offering art from five centuries, including several Rembrandt etchings, the d’Orsay consumed much of our afternoon. Talking art with consultant Ben Flythe and gallery co-director Kristine Feeks Hammond, was delightful, as their knowledge and enthusiasm kept us lingering and chatting. When discussing two Matisse drawings on the wall, Ben was so intrigued by another exhibit I referenced, he was soon online looking up the Baltimore collection. The d’Orsay was so captivating we could hardly walk away from the Chagalls that caught our eye from the street.

The following day was reserved for Twombly. With more than one hundred galleries, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is one of the world’s top museums, and because the MFA has a renowned collection of classical art, it’s a perfect place for the Twombly retrospective. Curated along with the museum’s vast displays of Greek and Roman relics, the exhibit is a fascinating connection of the old and new. Twombly lived many years in Rome, collecting statuary that, as it decayed, seemed to become a new form of art. Twombly explored that connection in his work believing, as Smee notes, “Modern art isn’t dislocated, but something with roots, tradition and continuity.” The curation by Christine Kondoleon, museum chair of ancient Greece and Rome, is a masterful homage to an icon of abstract expressionism. From Twombly’s famous scribbles, reflecting his interest in ancient text he couldn’t read but found artistically beautiful, to his toy-like sculptures and large scale explorations of color and text, the show honors Twombly’s lifelong exploration of abstraction, decay, and deconstruction.


After spending most of our day at the MFA, we meandered toward the North End, again wandering the shops and galleries on Newbury Street. Following a late lunch of burgers and cheese fries at Crazy Good Kitchen, as well as some reading time at two indie bookstores, we happened across DTR Modern Galleries with promises of pop art icons like Basquiat and Warhol. The staff was heading toward wine o’clock, but when I mentioned being a fan of Warhol contemporary Hunt Slonem, the ladies intrigued me with the comment, “We have a Bunnie Wall in back if you’d like to take a look.” Slonem’s bunnies are like Warhol’s Marilyns to pop art fans, and we spent a while wondering which bunny might suit us. Coming out of DTR, we hadn’t taken five steps before the captivating colors on display drew us across the street to The Sitka Gallery. Sitka, a whimsical and gregarious Oxford-trained artist who worked for years as an illustrator for Ralph Lauren, opened his Newbury gallery five years ago and is always available to talk art and more.


Of course, some of the best art in Boston can be found on the plate and everyone who goes to Boston definitely goes to eat. After a memorable dinner of chicken parm and a fresh seafood linguini on our first night at Giacomo’s in the North End, a cash only operation with regular lines down the sidewalk, we ended our second day just off Newbury at Buttermilk and Bourbon. Celebrity chef Jason Santos’ Boston bistro features elevated New Orleans cuisine, and it serves up one of the best whiskey cocktails I’ve ever had with Whistlepig Piggyback Rye and Vermont maple syrup. Our dinner at the bar included short rib croquettes, barbeque shrimp over jalapeno grits, and a dessert of apple biscuit bread pudding with butterscotch, cinnamon creme that I’m still thinking about.

The following morning, on our last day in Boston, thinking we were all art’d out, we headed to the North End for shopping. However, leaving the waterfront, we passed James Hook & Company, a Boston landmark lobster house, and soon we were sitting down for a crab cake and clam chowda breakfast. Later, Boston gave us one more taste of art in the Boston Public Market. Wandering various food stalls, we happened across another delightful artist encounter with the food-inspired pop art of Laurel Greenfield. Greenfield is a charming young woman whose first love was the culinary arts, having gone to BU to study nutrition. When the art world called, she set up shop in Boston’s bustling business incubator, and we couldn’t resist buying a print of her take on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers featuring blooms of bagels, originally commissioned by a local restaurant. It was a perfectly artsy ending to our trip.

Boston is a truly artful destination, and the Museum of Fine Arts is a location we might need to return to soon, having just missed the opening of a show on the famed Hokusai waves. Of course, on our next trip that Chagall print might still be calling to me from the street, and I might not have the discipline to walk away.
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Marc Chagall

Adam and Eve and the Forbidden Fruit

From the Bible Suite

1960

Book Edition lithograph

Sheet Size: 14” x 10 ¼”

Journals, Magazines & the drag of exclusive submissions

It can be a frustrating process for writers and scholars, the path to publishing an article in a journal or magazine. Following the arduous task of actually producing a work of publishable quality -- what did Hemingway say? ... sit down at the writing desk and open a vein -- then comes the job of pitching and querying and waiting for acceptance and rejection.

And, with that is the dreaded request for "exclusive submissions."

While many -- in fact, the majority that I pay attention -- journals and magazines accept simultaneous submissions with the simple request to "please notify us if the piece is accepted elsewhere," some publications put an unrealistic requirement on writers to give exclusive reading rights for several months with no promise of publication. 

While I understand reservations about simultaneous submissions out of concern for the time of submission readers and editors, it's equally challenging for writers and scholars to concede to exclusive submissions and wait for months at a time only to receive a single rejection and start again. Granted, while writers certainly have the freedom to simply not submit to publications with that requirement, I personally feel like it's a flaw in the system.

Symbolism -- Does It Really Mean That?

The green light, the red hat, the whiteness of a whale ...

Symbolism in literature is the catnip of the English teacher and often the bane of existence and teeth clenching frustration for the high school and college student. "Does it really mean that?" has been asked by more students than "can I have a bathroom pass?" And while the use of symbolism is undoubtedly a key technique for writers of western literature -- drawing heavily from the Judeo-Christian ethic and foundational literary and philosophical works of western civ -- authors and readers will occasionally dismiss the very possibility of a symbolic component, glibly noting "the names were simply pulled from a phonebook" or "sometimes yellow is just a color."

About "Meeting Students Where They Are"

It was a simple line in a speech about education, but it packed a wallop:

"... the soft bigotry of low expectations."

That line, written by Michael Gerson and delivered by President George W. Bush in a speech promoting the No Child Left Behind Act, addressed low academic expectations casually, sometimes unconsciously, or worse intentionally, put upon predominantly poor and minority students and directly influencing lower academic achievement. For roughly a quarter century now, ideas about standards and expectations have driven countless reforms in education designed to improve achievement. Much of it has been ineffective.

There are endless bromides and slogans and cliches about best practices and what works for kids, notably the idea that students "rise to the level of expectations." On the other hand, critics might reasonably argue that the idea of "meeting kids where they are," acknowledging individual students' abilities and needs as opposed to more rigid ideas about "how kids are supposed to be" has led to a lowering of expectations. Basically, this might boil down to an assumption and resignation that "kids don't read" and kids won't read an entire novel, or kids can't write a multi-paragraph essay, so schools, classes, teachers simply stopped assigning them.

Clearly that sounds terrible. However, I will not immediately dismiss the idea of being "a responsive educator." By that I mean, approaching each class and lesson with acknowledgement of the actual humans in the classroom, as opposed to simply teaching a curriculum or unit or lesson. Educators must be attentive to the specific knowledge, skills, and needs of the actual students in the classroom or much time can be wasted. That might be from assuming kids simply know something and thus don't need instruction, or even a reminder, which can compromise and almost guarantee glitches in learning if not failure. However, it can also mean assuming kids don't know something, which leads to wasting time with redundancy.

So, it's complicated, to say the least. An interesting and compelling take on the issue, one that has ignited some genuine debate and discussion online and in schools is the advice, even admonition, from Case Western English Professor Walt Hunter in an essay for The Atlantic:  "Stop Meeting Students Where They Are."

At some point over the past 15 years, kids stopped reading. Or at least their teachers stopped asking them to read the way they once did. We live in the age of the reel, the story, the sample, the clip. The age of the excerpt. And even in old-fashioned literature classes, assignments have been abbreviated so dramatically that high-school English teachers are, according to one recent survey, assigning fewer than three books a year.

I’ve seen the effects of this change up close, having taught English in college classrooms since 2007, and I’ve witnessed the slow erosion of attention firsthand, too: students on computers in the back of lecture halls, then on phones throughout the classroom, then outsourcing their education to artificial intelligence. We know that tech companies supply the means of distraction. But somehow the blame falls on the young reader. Whole novels aren’t possible to teach, we are told, because students won’t (or can’t) read them. So why assign them?

When I walked into my American-literature class at Case Western Reserve University last fall, I looked at 32 college students, mostly science majors, and expected an uphill battle. As my colleague Rose Horowitch has reported, “Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.” One-third of the high-school seniors tested in 2024 were found not to have basic reading skills.

Yet by the end of the semester, as we read the last sentence of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, I regretted ever doubting my students. I am now convinced that I was wrong to listen to the ostensible wisdom of the day—and that teachers of literature are wrong to give up assigning the books we loved ourselves. There may be plenty of good reasons to despair over the present. The literature classroom should not be one of them.

The survival of public media

Years ago, the talk was about the "war against Sesame Street." 

For many years, one of the key cultural battles between Democrats and Republicans was about the federal funding of national public media. And to many people that meant the two organizations at the top which are NPR - National Public Radio - and CFB which manages PBS - The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Public Broadcasting System. And, of those two, it was PBS that resonated the most with the average voter, consumer, taxpayer because, well, ... "Big Bird and Sesame Street."

That battle over federal funding for public programming that critics and opponents felt slanted to the left and stifled voices from the right was most prominent around 2012 with the candidacy of Mitt Romney, though it hearkens back to the early 90s with the rise of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. At the time, there was little enthusiasm for cutting funding to public broadcasting, as it was effectively framed as an attack on Elmo. 

Fast forward to the brave new world of 2025, and the Republican Party, controlling the Executive and Legislative branches, has succeeded in cutting billions of dollars that once helped support local public radio and television across the country. Since that legislative battle happened during the passing of the comprehensive spending bill, it seems for now that: Public Media Holds Its Apocalypse at Bay, for Now.

Things looked bleak last summer for KCAW, a tiny public radio station serving the remote community of Sitka, Alaska (population 8,393).

Congress had just slashed $500 million in funding for public media, blowing a $187,500 hole in the station’s budget. Mariana Robertson, the station’s general manager, said she had faced a potential “doomsday” situation that included cutting staff.

Then the donations poured in.

Now, Ms. Robertson is one of many station directors across America who find themselves in unexpected territory: first, expecting the worst, but then buoyed by a flood of emergency funding that has kept their stations stable and surviving. For now.

I'm not a regular listener of NPR, and I no longer have broadcast or cable television, so I've mostly noticed the effective in the area I most appreciate the media -- local music radio like The Colorado Sound and Indie 102.3 here in Denver and Fort Collins. And, I am hoping for the continued public support through donations while we hopefully reach a consensus and collaboration on the value of federal funding for public broadcasting.

Vision Quest

It was forty-one years ago, yesterday, that Louden Swain took on "the Shute."

If you know, you know. And Vision Quest is a purely classic teen drama-comedy-inspirational-sports movie from the teen years of Gen X, based on a YA novel from Terry Davis, and starring a young, adorable Mathew Modine alongside Michael Schoeffling (yeah, Jake from Sixteen Candles) and Linda Fiorentino. It's one of the best from one of the best times in cinema -- teen films in the 1980s were a genre above itself, and Vision Quest is a real gem.

How Ryan Reynolds & Rob Mac Saved Wrexham

It's an unlikely story to say the least, one made in Hollywood with Hollywood stars, to be sure.

A couple of American guys with no real connections to futbol (soccer), Great Britain, or the English Premier League, and all its subsidiaries, decide to buy a soccer team and end up reviving an historic town and franchise at the same time. It's kind of silly, and an even more idealistic narrative than the brilliant and heartwarming story of Ted Lasso that saved the feel good sports story a few years back. This is, of course, the story of "Ryan Reynold, Rob Mac, and Wrexham Football Five Years Later." 

“I didn’t know Rob, [Reynolds explains]. But I noticed we followed each other on Instagram. I sent him a little note. I think I even told him not to respond. I just wanted to say I’d enjoyed something he did.”

From such inauspicious beginnings came one of the more remarkable sports partnerships. The two actors have spent the past five years transforming the fortunes of not only a football club but an entire town (now city) by restoring a sense of civic pride many locals in Wrexham feared had gone for good.

The Athletic is speaking exclusively to Reynolds and Mac to mark their anniversary today. We are five years on from the February 9, 2021 takeover that has effectively rewritten the book on how to successfully run a football club. And this despite the fact, as Mac quips in our interview, “We still don’t 100 per cent understand the sport!”

To recap, the pair paid a token £1 to buy an ailing team who were then playing down in the fifth tier of the English football pyramid, alongside a promise to invest a further £2million. Five years — and three successive promotions — later, that same club are one promotion from the Premier League and were recently valued at £350million ($475m).

It’s a remarkable rags-to-riches story that has been captured in the Welcome To Wrexham documentary series, whose own successes include 10 Emmys. 

Wuthering Heights is not a love story

Years ago, a group of English colleagues and I took a post-graduate class in literature with another who was a Ph.D. and adjunct for a local university. Several of us were just interested in some professional development while a couple others were using the class as part of their MA in English. The class was primarily Victorian in nature, and we read some incredible works of literature, some familiar - namely Jane Eyre - and others new and obscure - like the sublime melodrama East Lynne from Ellen Wood.

And then we read Wuthering Heights. Surprisingly, none of the English majors in the room had read or taught the book. And for that we were thankful. Truly, the room was in consensus that it was one of the worst novels we can recall reading in its entirety. Other than the professor, who was quite amused by our contempt for the story, no one enjoyed it, and the reason was clear: it is a truly miserable story in a miserable setting about miserable people and a miserable message. 

Consensus: WH is not only not a great love story, it's not a love story at all. And that's an important consideration with the recent release of a film version and the New York Times asking: Is Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ Actually the Greatest Love Story of All Time? 

No. No, it is absolutely not.

The Washington Post has a piece as well, taking a markedly different approach by stating "Wuthering Heights" is the "Birth of the Toxic Boyfriend.

And, yes. Yes, it is.