Jane Alden
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About
Jane Alden spent over 40 years as a professional actress working on Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, in regional repertory theatres all over the country, in touring companies, and in television and in films. She studied theatre and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University. After retiring from acting some 16 years ago, she created the Orcas Island Children’s Theatre and began teaching, directing, producing and writing for children’s theatre. Shakespeare has always been a special love and she has worked extensively on this material over the last 16 years with children and adults, teaching classes and directing the plays of this most glorious writer.
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Recent Activity
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Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Lysander's primary character trait is the same as Demetrius's primary character trait. As a matter of fact, the two of them are basically interchangeable. What operates strongly in both of them is... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Since, when you ask about the conflicts in Midsummer Night's Dream, you stipulate "so far," and, as I have no idea where you are in the play and therefore no idea what, "so far," means to you, I... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Puck is talking to Lysander and Demetrius (although they cannot hear him) as he plans to get them each tired and lost in the forest so they can have magic worked upon them when they eventually drop... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Egeus is represented as the source of conflict that creates the action by the lovers that sparks the movement of the play. He represents authority, life lived by strict rules, and the idea of... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
I disagree with the above answers in that, I do believe his transformation reveals something very important about the essential truth of his character. First of all, after his first transformation,... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
This is a very large question, and with no specifics as to what aspects of the play are significant to which aspects of the culture, and no specifics as to which culture is being asked about, I can... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Well, speaking as a Christian, I must say that the 'love' depicted in Midsummer Night's Dream, is perfectly understandable. Christians experience all forms of the romantic passion, just as all... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Bottom is definitely a Fool, and I spell that with a capital 'F' because he is an example of a classical archetype in an ancient, theatrical tradition. Shakespeare wrote different kinds of Fools,... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
1. Interesting question! I've seen it dealt with one way that I recall, and that was Oberon simply being way more powerful than a mere fairy, whose job was to guard the Queen from things no more... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
Okay, you've got a ton of answers here, but what I believe is the intention behind these words, (the reason the witches say them), is because they are making an incantation. They are not just... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
The powerlessness of the women in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the women in that society comes from the laws that made female daughters utterly subservient to the wishes of their father or... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
The mood in Act III of A Midsummer Night's Dream is passionate confusion. It is the end of a trying day for the four lovers, Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius, all of whom are now in the... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
As mentioned above, the division between the life of the court and the life of the woods represents a division in styles of living, but the most important difference between the two locations,... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare paints, in Helena, a portrait of someone so in love with her rejecting ex-lover, Demetrius, that nothing else matters to her... not her safety, not her self-respect, not her sense of... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Pyramus & Thisbe play is a brilliant piece of stagecraft. Shakespeare puts a tragedy about Love into a comedy about Love and turns the tragedy into an overwhelmingly comic... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
What makes comedy, among other things, is contrast. This play is full of contrast. The Mechanicals/Clowns are contrasted with Nobles and Fairies. Another element of comedy is literalism. The Clowns... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
I agree with the above and would add that, as this is a play about Love, all kinds of it, (it was written to be performed at the wedding of a noble), the forest symbolizes the level of... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Act I, scene 1 has a lot of emotions! The play begins with a scene expressing longing and anticipation, and moves to a scene expressing intense conflict of desires. Everybody at the opening of this... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
I agree with the first answer but would add that the words, "so ( foul and fair a day) I have not seen," are as important as the descriptive words. They let us know that the combination of 'foul'... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
It's clear from the text that it is a mistake. He sees a male in the garb of Athens and, as that was the description Oberon gave him of the man he wanted squirted with the Love juice, Puck squirts... -
Answered a Question in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hermia is in love with Lysander and they want to be married. Hermia's father wants her to marry Demetrius, who has fallen in love with her and been given her father's consent to marry her. The law... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
"Is this a dagger that I see before me, handle toward my hand . ." says it all. The dagger is a symbolic, poetic image, expressing Macbeth's inner questioning, which is,"Is this thing that I am... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
I agree with most of the statements regarding this line, but there is one very important element that has been left out. Shakespeare was a dramatist first and foremost and every word he wrote... -
Answered a Question in Macbeth
In the text of Macbeth, an argument can be made either for them having children, or for them not having children. It is one of those lovely un-provables that adds to the richness and mystery of the...