On the heels of comparing Shakespearean theatre to a kind of athletic event comes news of a summer program that takes the idea one step further. In this program, students participate in a kind of Shakespearean boot camp in which they get the chance to perform scenes and participate in other workshops, all leading up to the big finale, which this year is a production of Antony and Cleopatra. Before that culmination, the students work anywhere from fifteen to eighteen hours per day learning their craft and preparing for performances. This intense approach made me think whether some kind of suffering is required as a rite of passage in Shakespearean theatre.

Before anyone makes it to, say, The Globe, they typically build up their resumes in smaller venues, some of which require them to do more than act. In a sense, actors (Shakespearean or otherwise) must learn who they are, and hardcore training environments like this allow them to do so. Still, there is the sense that physical duress is part of the recipe. As a case in point, one student ended up on crutches after an armadillo-related accident. I am not making this up. Let’s go ahead and add “injury involving armadillo” to the list of phrases we (a) never thought we’d hear and (b) never would associate with Shakespeare.

Maybe the trial-by-fire theme isn’t solely applicable to Shakespeare or acting. Perhaps, as a whole, we respect people more if they achieve something under duress. Perhaps that’s why we hold instant celebrities in such contempt. After all, how many of those celebutantes have armadillo wounds?

A new review of the “Roman Repertory” of Shakespeare’s plays (Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra) used the “T” word again: traditional. The two productions are being presented as a kind of larger work, and this particular reviewer was relieved that the plays were presented in togas with relatively little overt theatricality or conceptual intrusion. In the process, said writer dropped a diss on the recent modern-dress Broadway production of Julius Caesar starring a certain Oscar-winning movie star.

So, it seems that old is the new new. To be fair, this reviewer was in no way a fuddy-duddy; he acknowledged that he’s loved Shakespearean productions both overtly conceptual and not. Still, there was a sense that he was relieved that someone let the plays do most of the talking. While the sets, costumes and other design elements were far from ordinary, they were clearly geared towards period representation.

In a way, I can see where the reviewer is coming from. It seems that the distinction he is making is the concept for the sake of concept is rarely successful. There are tons of Shakespeare productions and some clearly bear the mark of trying too hard to be different. What’s wrong with that is an inherent mistrust of the plays themselves. If a director and her team find something new in the play, great; however, they can do that whether they set the play in Ancient Rome or three thousand years in the future.

Any time an established stage or film star agrees to appear in a Shakespearean production, it brings many things: curiosity, media attention and, hopefully, good box office. For Shakespeare fans, the hope is that people who might not ordinarily attend Shakespearean theatre will come and become fans themselves. For those already interested in Shakespeare in performance, these star turns can provoke endless debates about whose interpretation of a character is the definitive one. Well, another star is throwing her hat into the ring and including herself in this ongoing debate. Paris Hilton will headline a Broadway production of Antony & Cleopatra.

Though she comes from humble beginnings, Ms. Hilton has managed to carve out a highly respected career in the entertainment industry as both a singer and actress. Anyone who witnessed her shatteringly emotional performance in House of Wax knows she is a performer of incredible depth and range. Furthermore, her soaring vocals on tracks like “Stars are Blind” have fans hoping that she will one day do a musical to combine all of her musical gifts. When asked what drew her to Shakespeare and this play in particular, she stated that the four hundred year-old tragedy struck an emotional chord with her because “people die in it and stuff… and that’s, like, sad.” No word yet on who will costar with her as Antony, but fans are keeping their fingers crossed for shirt-averse actor Matthew McConaughey. So Blog readers, if you’re interested in more information on this production, well, April Fools.

A new trend in productions of Shakespearean plays is to present several of the works in repertory as a set or series. Most recently, the histories have been presented en masse as an historical cycle consisting of the Henry and Richard plays. Now, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra are being presented together as a “Roman Repertory.” The productions even share some of the same actors, including the one playing Marc Antony. The repertory approach to the plays has many advantages, namely comparing the works and creating relationships between them. In contemporary theatre, plays presented in repertory are often part of a series in which most or all of the characters reappear in each installment. Relatively recent examples of this include Angels in America and The Coast of Utopia.

For Shakespeare, the relationships among the plays differ because they weren’t necessarily written or conceived as a series. This is particularly true of the histories, some of which were not written in the chronological order of the events they depict. For Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, there are similar issues to consider. Though the action of the plays is separated by merely a few years, the plays were written nearly a decade apart. Therefore, can we really make these plays work together tonally? Antony and Cleopatra’s name value centers around a tragic romance, which is not the case for Julius Caesar, whose notoriety stems from its political machinations. It would be ridiculous to try to prove whether or not Shakespeare would have wanted these plays presented together. The real test of their compatibility may come from seeing them side by side.

Shakespeare’s women are nothing if not succinct. While their husbands, fathers, brothers and male friends blather endlessly about every stupid thought in their heads, the girls choose their words carefully; so carefully, in fact, that many of them simply do not speak for lengthy stretches. Given the tradition of boy actors in Shakespeare’s time, perhaps this reduced “female” presence made sense. Still, Will’s heroines are at times maddeningly taciturn. At the end of Measure for Measure, does Isabella accept the marriage propose to her or renounce it and continue with her religious avocation? No one can be sure because she never utters another word, and as a result Measure for Measure has become the Edwin Drood of Shakespeare’s canon because each production must decide how to end it.

Somewhere out in internetland, some folks explored this problem from the opposite perspective. Instead of focusing on the negative, they counted the number of lines of every female character in Shakespeare’s plays to discover who was the most talkative. The results are surprising in that they do not include The Bard’s most famous femmes like Juliet or Lady Macbeth. Coming in at number three is Imogen, the plucky heroine of the complex (and often confusing) Cymbeline. First runner-up goes to the Queen of the Nile herself in Antony and Cleopatra. Finally, the gabbiest gal in Bard-dom is none other that Rosalind from As You Like It. The winner is easily the most recognizable of the three as the other two are featured in less frequently staged works. What does that say about contemporary appreciation of Shakespeare’s women? Do we simply exalt the plays based on the male characters and the women become famous by default (sort of like Kelly Preston)? Or, more insidiously, do we prefer these characters when they suffer in silence?

Reports were released yesterday announcing that Shakespeare and Company would receive a fifty-thousand dollar grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Shakespeare and Company has been producing The Bard’s works in the theatrically rich Berkshires area of Western Massachusetts for decades. Its co-founder, Tina Packer, recently starred in a production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.

The NEA, which gives grants to artists of all disciplines, has had a bumpy road since its inception just over forty years ago. In 1990, the now infamous “NEA Four” scandal brought the Endowment major notoriety when a lawsuit erupted over the content of four grant recipients’ pieces. Later in the 1990’s, actress (and current star of HBO’s racy series Tell Me You Love Me) Jane Alexander headed the NEA and wrote a book, Command Performance, about her difficult four-year tenure.

On the surface, awarding grants to Shakespeare festivals and companies may seem like a safe choice for a government organization that is doubtlessly gun-shy of further controversy. After all, Shakespeare’s literary reputation would seem to make him unassailable. Given the wildly diverse directions in which actors, directors and designers have taken Will’s words, that may not be the case. While I certainly hope Ms. Packer and Co. will not seek out controversy for controversy’s sake, I doubt they will simply do traditional tights-and-swords productions. After all, sometimes being offensive and disturbing is the starting point for getting an audience to think.

Amidst the seemingly endless coverage of the Michael Vick trial, one reporter compared the story to a Shakespearean tragedy. It’s a phrase that often gets tossed around, this comparison of life with the tragedies of Shakespeare and Ancient Greece, but what does it mean exactly? Furthermore, does it really apply in this case? What dramas in real-life qualify as “Shakespearean tragedies.”

First, and foremost, we can assume that the comparison is about the scale of the event and the “greatness” of the people involved. Vick may be well-known and ridiculously wealthy, but I have yet to see any evidence that he is a great man. And exactly, how far has he fallen? After all is said and done, he may still get to play football. Sadly, there are probably people who have gambled for much longer than Vick and are responsible for the deaths of many more animals, but if they were arrested, their trials would hardly be considered Shakespearean. Vick’s story is a tragedy only because the media nourishes itself on these kinds of personal train wrecks. If Vick is Antony, then Nicole Richie is his Cleopatra.

Mark Rylance is not ready to make nice. The actor, best known to film audiences for his turn in the excellent independent British film Angels and Insects, was the first artistic director of the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre from 1995 to 2005. During that time, he took on a slew of Shakespearean characters, ranging from Hamlet to Cleopatra. Now, he is risking all of that Bard cred with a new play he has written that questions whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote his plays.

In his new play, best abbreviated as I Am Shakespeare (the full title is much longer), Rylance creates a scholar character who encounters several historical figures who might have written some or all of the works now attributed to Shakespeare. The usual suspects pop up, most notably Christopher Marlowe, whose life and works have drawn plenty of conspiracy theories of their own. Frankly, I don’t see what the controversy is. Nobody can prove Rylance wrong, nor can he prove himself right. Maybe it’s fitting that we know more about the characters and stories created than the creater him(or her)self.