Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

I attended a lecture titled "Cervantes and Shakespeare: Metatextualities in Don Quixote and the Late Plays" by Professor Valerie Wayne from the University of Hawaii sponsored by the Early Modern Colloquium at the University of Michigan on  March 26 at 4:30 p.m.,  in a third-floor conference/classroom in Angell Hall on the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The 80-seat conference room is luxurious with tasteful cool-green and black printed wall-to-wall carpeting, expensive Steelcase chairs upholstered in a green-leaf print and black woven seatbacks. Golden oak paneling accents walls painted in a restful pale green. The paneling is accented with painted floral tiles in shades of earthy greens, golds and warm black. Upholstered benches are placed at intervals along the walls for overflow seating. It's hard to describe the opulence of university spaces. This room is clearly a renovation and thus lacks the majestic proportions of many older spaces, but the feel of no exp...

The Royal Shakespeare Company, the University of Michigan, and the University Musical Society are collaborating  on a 10-day residency in Ann Arbor, MI this week. A schedule of public events from the University Musical Society -- including a script reading of Greg Doran's version of the lost Shakespeare play, Cardenio --  follows. The University of Michigan has also announced the following lecture:  Friday, March 26, 4:30 p.m.,  "Cervantes and Shakespeare: Metatextualities in Don Quixote and the Late Plays," a lecture by Valerie Wayne, 3222 Angell Hall, UofM, Ann Arbor RSC Creative Project:  Insight for the Sor Juana play (written by Helen Edmundson) Wed, Mar 24, 6-8 pm Blau Auditorium, Ross School of Business, 701 Tappan St. A play by Helen Edmundson based on the story of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, a celebrated 17th-century, South American nun, emerging as a key figure in the history of literature in the Western hemisphere. Sor Juana wrote plays, ...

Dear Oberon,   For those of you who might be interested, a dissident's view (by yours truly,) of James Shapiro's new book about authorship,  Contested Will , has been posted on the SOS blog.  I would like to hear your thoughts. Click here: Hunter reviews Contested Will   Tom Hunter

Dear Oberon, Be with us at our Oberon meeting this Wednesday evening at the Farmington Library to welcome in a very green Michigan springtime on St. Patty’s Day. As the leprechauns sitting beneath the shamrocks say, those Shakespeare folk are not called O’Beron for nothing. We will take up exactly where we left off in discovering what there is about Shakespeare’s writing that makes it Shakespeare. We will also be making plans for our Unbirthday Party next month which we are hoping will include a visit by Ann Arbor’s Rude Mechanicals.   Plus there is the James Shapiro treatise on authorship, called  Contested Will , coming out on April 1 (that’s no joke) and a report by yours truly. Finally we need to be planning our Michigan Shakespeare Festival outing for this year and the two presentations which we will be making there to the assembled multitude. It will be the usual rollicking good time.    See you Wednesday. Yours in grateful service, Tom Hunter, Ch...

Rufus Wainwright talks about his response to Shakespeare in this brilliant interview by Tim Adams, "I was looking right into her face when my mother died" published February 21, 2010 in The Guardian: When Wainwright was working with Shakespeare's sonnets, he says – he was asked to help create a theatrical cycle of them for the Berliner Ensemble – he found all sorts of echoes of these kinds of experiences in them. One of the sonnets he includes on his album is Sonnet 10, "For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any", and he didn't need to research the scholarly opinion on the "poet", the "dark lady" and the "beautiful boy" to understand that this was the first great coming-out poem in the English language. "I knew immediately, instinctively, that this was the point where the poet first admits his love for the boy. And it is sort of the beginning of the avalanche. I remembered that moment very well…"

See Ambroise Thomas operatic version of Hamlet  broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera at local theaters worldwide. The Showcase and Quality 16 in Ann Arbor and many other Michigan theaters will feature the show. To find your local venue, check here: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/template.aspx?id=4654 Ticket prices vary but generally run around $18-20, and may be ordered online from individual theaters. Many sites sell out before the date of the event, so order early. Hamlet  – Ambroise Thomas March 27, 2010 at 1:00 pm ET US Encore: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 (6:30 PM local time) Canada Encore: April 24, 2010, 1 pm Expected Running time: 3 hours, 43 minutes, 2 intermissions The works of Shakespeare have inspired more operatic adaptations than any other writer’s. Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay bring their extraordinary acting and singing skills to two of the Bard’s most unforgettable characters in this new production of Ambroise Thomas’s...