A Quick Guide to A Midsummer Night’s Dream
By Kalina Ko, Literary Intern A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written by William Shakespeare sometime in the years between 1594-1596. It is considered one of Shakespeare’s comedies and is one of his most widely performed plays. The story has been adapted to many mediums including classical music, ballet, literature, and film. What is A Midsummer […]
Theatre in Shakespeare’s Time
By Kalina Ko, Literary Intern The iconic donkey-headed Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dreamis part of a group of amateur actors, commonly referred to as “the mechanicals.” In Shakespeare’s time, it was fairly uncommon for a group of non-professional actors to come together to put on a classical production, as in Pyramus and Thisbe. Yet, […]
Finding Our Inner Fairies
By Kalina Ko, Literary Intern What would A Midsummer Night’s Dream be without fairies? The mythology of fairies is incredibly widespread and varied. The term “fairy” itself dates back to the middle ages of Europe. However, similarities have been found between fairies, nymphs from Greek mythology, jinni from Arabic mythology, and other creatures in other […]
Gods, Heroes, and Monsters, oh my!
By Kalina Ko, Literary Intern Greek and Roman mythology has a wide and expansive influence. Recent movies such as “Wonder Woman” as well as classic novels such as “Frankenstein” all draw inspiration from Greco-Roman mythology. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is no exception. These are several pertinent mythological figures and stories that appear in the play. […]
Welcome to Midsummer!
After last year’s Hamlet, which celebrated SFShakes’ 35th Anniversary Season, we’ve set our sights to funnier fare in the 2018 season with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The enduring love story showcases its comic romantic complexities right up front: Demetrius and Lysander both want Hermia. Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father would rather she be smitten […]
Drum roll, please… announcing “$35K in 35 Days!”
Earlier this summer, we announced our 35th Anniversary Campaign. And what a success the campaign has been: we’re thrilled to announce that we’re so, so close to reaching our goal! We only have $35,000 left to go, and we need your help. We believe that, with help from supporters like you, we can raise that […]
3 Questions for Tom Wells
Meet Tom. Tom Wells arrived at SF Shakes this August to step in as our new Education Director. Since then, he’s been on an SF Shakes crash course, learning the ins and outs of running our major educational offerings. He brings an impressive resume with him: he spent years managing education programs at Shakespeare & […]
To Thine Own Self be True: An Education Intern’s Perspective
by Frances Raynolds It’s been a month since the last group of Bay Area Shakespeare Campers took their curtain call bows and we closed out camp for the summer. Every camp relies on the invaluable contributions of Education Interns and the interns, in return, learn a range of skills from our Teaching Artists…and sometimes from the […]
Why We’re So Excited about our “Ramayana” Residency
You might have noticed, since we keep mentioning it, that we’re just a little bit excited about our first-ever Residency collaboration with both EnActe Arts and the City of Cupertino. We’ve had people wonder, though: “Why Ramayana? Why not the usual Shakespeare play?” There are plenty of answers. We love Shakespeare and his stories–we’ve proudly […]
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow: An Interview with Carl Holvick
This week we bid a sweet yet sorrow-filled farewell to our beloved Education Director, Carl Holvick, who will begin an exciting new chapter of his career by pursuing his dual MBA/MFA in Theater Management this fall at Yale University. Kristin Hall sat down with Carl and asked him to reflect on his eight years with […]