After having a little chat with Sherri, my goal to see all of the Bard's plays has kicked into high gear once more. I just bought a ticket to see Othello on Wednesday. This means that I'll be re-reading the play tomorrow and posting my thoughts on Tuesday. I'll then see the play and post my thoughts about that. I'm excited!

As I mentioned earlier, the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival is in full swing in the city of Brotherly Love. A great opportunity to get two plays out of the way quickly! Othello and The Taming of the Shrew are on deck this year, and I am quite excited about both.

However, I just found out that the Lantern Theater company is also putting on a staging of 'The Taming of the Shrew', which it would seem isn't associated with the Festival (sad, though, that they aren't putting on a different one of the plays so I could kill 3 birds with one stone). The interesting thing about the Lantern's production is that the entire cast is male. Why is this so interesting?

When Shakespeare's plays were originally staged all the parts were played by men, including the women. This is an opportunity to see one of his works in the way that it was meant to be seen. I imagine that some of the crossdressing will be used for humor, but I'm OK with that. I mean, it is a comedy after-all!

Therefore, I think I'll be seeing the Lantern's Shrew and the Festival's Othello.

I'm getting excited, people.

The Immortal Bard: William Shakespeare. It is far from original for a writer, and former English major, to profess his love of Shakespeare’s work. It is a good thing I have never been afraid to seem like a stereotype. There is a reason people still perform, read, and talk about Shakespeare’s work hundreds of years after his death. That boy could write!

I woke up this morning with the germ of an idea in my mind and the full weight of the early hour on my shoulders. It dawned on me that I have been a resident of Philadelphia for almost 4 years (and loving it greatly, thank you very much) and yet I hadn’t managed to make it to even one performance of the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival in all that time. What kind of pretentious English major am I?

The lazy kind it would seem.

Ask me not why I was pondering my pitiable Philadelphia Shakespeare record early this morning, but there I was. I decided then and there, in my bed and with my MacBook as my witness, that I would attend both productions that are being put on this season (Othello and The Taming of the Shrew). Sadly, I cannot let well enough alone and I began to think about all the other Shakespeare plays that I have read, and those that I haven’t read. Another realization creeped up on me, I haven’t seen very many Shakespeare plays in my life. That’s just not right.

That brings us to Stalking the Bard (thanks to Dave for helping me come up with the name). As I often do, I have decided to embark upon another meaningless, silly, and whimsical project: see each and every play Shakespeare has written performed live once in my life. Furthermore, in true Scott McNulty nature, I decided that I would blog the process (it doesn’t count if it isn’t on a blog, right?).

That’s what this site is all about. Me, Shakespeare, and 37 little plays.

This should be fun.