WILD ABOUT WILL
BELLS & WHISTLES/CLANGING –
NARR
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Shakespeare Live: Wild About Will! There’ll be slugging and clodding and wee willy willy fun facts. We’re glad to have you with us!
NAR
Gooooood afternoon Central PA Theatre & Dance Fest! Today is Sunday, June 21. The weather is – well I’m sure you can see for yourself what the weather is. I have a few brief announcements before we get underway. The use of flash photography is strictly prohibited by the Queen – however – the Queen is absent today, so for all you flashers out there, flash away to your hearts content.
NARR
Please do take a moment now to locate the exit nearest your seat. Should the park experience a sudden loss of pressure, oxygen masks will drop automatically. Simply place the mask over your own nose and mouth and continue to breathe normally. If you are at the park with a small child, please place your own mask on first and let the little bugger fend for himself.
NARR
Today we are about to attempt a feat which we believe to be unprecedented in the history of theatre. That is, to capture, in a single theatrical experience, the magic, the genius, the towering grandeur of the Compleat Works of William Shakespeare.
NARR
Unprecedented of course if you don’t count the last 15 times we’ve done this. Plus the millions of Shakespeare festivals around the world attempting the same feat.
NARR
So without further adieu
PLAYERS (sneezing)
Adieu
ANNOUNCERS
Please welcome our boisterously, bodacious, blundering band of berry merry players – called the Berry Merry Players Band.
PLAYERS – introduce themselves one by one and do a small trick.
(Applause Sign)
NARR
(Call to order with cowbell)
In today’s left corner we have the Tempest Berry Merry Players Band (the players run to the left corner) and in our right corner, ummmm…. The Tempest Berry Merry Players Band (they run to the left corner).
In today’s left corner we have HALF of the Tempest Berry Merry Players Band (1/2 the players run to the left corner) and in our right corner, the other half of The Tempest Berry Merry Players Band (everyone switches corners).
Today’s festivities include (players act out)
Dancing
Singing
Jousting
Juggling
Games and other Activities
Cheesy Acting and of course, our personal favorite
Dramatic Deaths
And now without much further ado, Tempest Productions is proud to present
TRUMPET FANFARE
ALL
WILD ABOUT WILL!
(Take places for You Are Quoting Shakespeare)
YOU ARE QUOTING SHAKESPEARE
ALL ENTER & POSE DRAMATICALLY
BELL
ALL
All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits (company exits)
And their entrances (company enters)
1
And one man
2
or woman
3
in his time
ALL
or her time
4
plays many
ALL
womanly parts. (company acts out various characters)
SHAKESPEAREAN SCHOLAR
(enters very seriously as a Shakespearean scholar, company follows)
Why Shakespeare thou might ask?
ALL
We asketh it all the time. Eth.
SCHOLAR
As I was saying, why Shakespeare? Well, let me explain it to you.
(takes out a large scroll and begins to read….)
If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me”
ALL
You are quoting Shakespeare!
OPHELIA
if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning,
ALL
You are quoting Shakespeare!
HAMLET
If you recall your salad days
ALL
You are quoting Shakespeare!
MACBETH
If you act more in sorrow than in anger;
BANQUO
if your wish is farther to the thought;
KING
if your lost property has vanished into thin air,
ALL
You are quoting Shakespeare!
LADY M
If you have ever refused to budge an inch
OTHELLO
or suffered from green-eyed jealousy,
MERCUTIO
if you have played fast and loose,
DEMETR
if you have been tongue-tied,
KATE
a tower of strength,
BRUTUS
hoodwinked or
THE PLAYER
in a pickle,
THE QUEEN
if you have knitted your brows,
ROSENCRATZ
made a virtue of necessity,
GUILDENSTERN
insisted on fair play,
GHOST
slept not one wink,
CAPULET
stood on ceremony,
NURSE
danced attendance on your lord and master,
PUCK
laughed yourself into stitches,
MALCOLM
had short shrift,
DONALBAIN
cold comfort
HECATE
or too much of a good thing,
MEN
if you have seen better days
WOMEN
or lived in a fool’s paradise
MEN
why, be that as it may,
ADD ON
the more fool you ,
ADD ON
for it is a foregone conclusion
ALL
that you are
PARIS
as good luck would have it
ALL
Quoting Shakespeare.
LAERTES
If you think it is early days
POLONIUS
and clear out bag and baggage
HORATIO
if you think it is high time
GERTRUDE
and that that is the long and short of it,
CLAUDIUS
if you believe that the game is up
HERMIA
and that truth will out
ROMEO
even if it involves your own flesh and blood,
JULIET
if you lie low till the crack of doom
HAMLET
because you suspect foul play,
XXX
if you have your teeth set on edge at one fell swoop
XXX
without rhyme or reason,
XXX
then – to give the devil his due –
XXX
if the truth were known
XXX
for surely you have a tongue in your head
ALL
You are quoting Shakespeare;
XXX
even if you bid me good riddance
XXX
and send me packing,
XXX
if you wish I was dead as a door-nail,
XXX
if you think I am an eyesore,
XXX
a laughing stock,
XXX
the devil incarnate,
XXX
a stony-hearted villain,
XXX
bloody-minded
XXX
or a blinking idiot,
XXX
then – by Jove!
XXX
O Lord!
XXX
Tut tut!
XXX
For goodness’ sake!
XXX
What the dickens!
XXX
But me no buts!
XXX
it is all one to me, for
XXX
You (points to an audience member)
XXX
You (points to an audience member)
XXX
You (points to an audience member)
ALL
You are quoting Shakespeare.
TWENTY THREE THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
LISSA (The Writer’s Almanac intro)
It’s the birthday of novelist William Shakespeare born in Brooklyn in 1937. He was raised by his mother, who was schizophrenic, and when she was institutionalized, he spent several years in a Catholic orphanage. Sometimes he and his mother would drive across the country and end up in a Salvation Army somewhere, or a random hotel. He said:
IAN
“My early life was very strange. I was a solitary; radio fashioned my imagination. Radio narrative always has to embody a full account of both action and scene. I began to do that myself. When I was seven or eight, I’d walk through Central Park like Sam Spade, describing aloud what I was doing, becoming both the actor and the writer setting him into the scene. That was where I developed an inner ear.”
LISSA
Shakespeare dropped out of high school to join the Navy, then moved back to New York City. He worked as a copy boy at the Daily News, and during his brief stint at NYU, he met Janice Burr, the woman he eventually married. They moved to New Orleans, and Shakespeare found work as a census-taker. He walked every neighborhood of New Orleans, asking questions. He wrote:
IAN
“The closer to street level you live, the more you have lessons thrust upon you.”
LISSA
I betcha didn’t know that about our boy Willy! And here are a few additional things you never knew about Shakespeare!
REILLY
William Shakespeare would have been considered a very controversial figure when he married a much older woman who was pregnant with their child. Anne Hathaway (star of Les Miserable) was 26 years old when William married her at the age of 18. She duly gave birtn to Susanna six months after the wedding.
LORI
Among the 80 languages Shakespeare’s works have been translated into, the most obscure must be the constructed language of Star Trek’s Klingon. Hamlet and Much Ado about Nothing have both been translated as part of the Klingon Shakespeare Restoration Project by the Klingon Language Institute.
ELAINE
Unlike most artists of his time, Shakespeare died a very wealthy man with a large property portfolio. He was a brilliant businessman – forming a joint-stock company with his actors meaning he took a share in the company’s profits, as well as earning a fee for each play he wrote.
DEBBIE
A play called Cardenio, which was credited to Shakespeare and performed in his lifetime, has been completely lost. Today there is no known record of its story anywhere.
STEPHANIE
The United States has Shakespeare to thank for its estimated 200 million starlings. In 1890 an American bardolator, Eugene Schiffelin, embarked on a project to import each species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s works that was absent from the US. Part of this project involved releasing two flocks of 60 starlings in New York’s Central Park.
LISSA
And now it’s time to return you to our regularly scheduled programm(e).
ALL
e.
MIKE
Tonight we are going to witness the most anticipated match in the history of professional wrestling for the heavy weight championship of the world. Are you ready? Wrestling fans, are you rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrready? For the thousands in attendance and the millions watching watching around the world, from the capital city of the United States of America, Bellefonte, Pa, ladies and gentlemen, lllllet’s get ready to rumble!
SLUGS VS CLOGS
Willy Willy Fun Facts
LISSA
And we now return you to our regularly scheduled program
ALL
E
LISSA
Yes boys and girls it’s that time. Time for Willy Willy Fun Facts! On my left, we have some wonderful Shakespearean Scholars – shall we meet them? I say ay! And today they are here to share with you some really really fun facts about Willy! So let’s not waste any more time and get started! Scholar #1 – what do you have to share with us today?
ELAINE
Willy Willy Fun Fact 7:
There are more than 80 variations recorded for the spelling of Shakespeare’s name. In the few original signatures that have survived, Shakespeare spelt his name “Willm Shaksp,” “William Shakespe,” “Wm Shakspe,” “William Shakspere,” ”Willm Shakspere,” and “William Shakspeare”. There are no records of him ever having spelt it “William Shakespeare”, as we know him today.
LISSA
Scholar #2, what do you have to share?
REILLY
Willy Willy Fun Fact 15:
On his death Shakespeare made several gifts to various people but left his property to his daughter, Susanna. The only mention of his wife in Shakespeare’s own will is: “I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture”. The “furniture” was the bedclothes for the bed.
LISSA
Scholar #3?
STEPH
Willy Willy Fun Fact 20:
During his life, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets! This means an average 1.5 plays a year since he first started writing in 1589.
LISSA
Scholar #4, what do you have?
DEBBIE
Willy Willy Fun Fact 41:
The American President Abraham Lincoln was a great lover of Shakespeare’s plays and frequently recited from them to his friends. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth was a famous Shakespearean actor.
LISSA
And Scholar #1, it seems you have something else you want to share with our studio audience.
ELAINE
Why yes I do! Willy Willy Fun Fact #38:
The Royal Shakespeare Company sells more than half a million tickets a year for Shakespeare productions at their theatres in Stratford-on-Avon, London and Newcastle – introducing an estimated 50,000 people to a live Shakespeare performance for the first time each year. We on the other hand have sold no tickets. Tis Free!
LISSA
And that’s all we have time for today! Thanks for tuning in and joining us for
ALL
Willy Willy Fun Facts!
INSERT 10 MINUTE PLAYS
AND Whisking with Wee Willie (ELAINE’s piece)
CLOSE OUT
NARR
We thank thee for thou time and attention. And again a big thank you to our sponsors – The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
NARR
Today’s broadcast has been brought to you by the letters A & E.
NARR
We have been proud to offer such festivities as
Dancing
Singing
Dramatic Deaths
Cheesy Acting
And of course, without much ado, the immortal words of
ALL
William Shakespeare!