Shakespeare Engaged!

I think our event last night was a success. We had about 80 people there, counting our classmates. And everything and everybody looked good, there weren't any embarrassing "technical difficulties," and the audience seemed to really enjoy our program.

I really liked the ways we involved the audience. Professor Burton's idea to have the audience share their "Shakespeare testimonies" was a great way to kick off the evening, and a good segue into sharing the blogs. We learned that Shakespeare is relevant to anything, whether it's serving the homeless, the nesting habits of cuckoo birds or cycling in the city of Boston.

After Averill's play, during the time that the audience could ask questions of the performers and documentary filmmakers, the idea came to me to ask the audience what they thought of seeing their family and friends up there on stage doing Shakespeare. I'm glad I thought of that, because I think it was another way for the audience to share the experience and to make the engagement a two-way street. And a few commented on how surprised and impressed they were with their friends and family and the production in general. Most people probably thought, "Class project? Yay [sarcastically]." They might have felt like they were watching their 12-year-old children playing "Hot Cross Buns" in a middle school concert, with squeaky clarinets and everything. But the actors did more than just memorize a few lines, and the documentary filmmakers did more than just turn on cameras.

I was very proud of everybody's projects. I was thinking about group projects I've done in the past, and I could tell that in this Shakespeare class, everybody worked hard. It didn't seem like there was anybody who did the minimum and then get their name put on the assignment anyway. Everybody put their heart and soul into it. And it was one of those few times when a group project actually made us all friends with each other.

Everything but the music video is available online. And everything will be put up on our Engaging Shakespeare website soon. (If that link doesn't work, try this one.)

Less Matter More Art

The group also got quite a response from their artwork posted on Deviant Art, and posted their lesson plans on a site called Connexions.

Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark: An Abridged Audiobook

(There's some overlap during the first minute of the audio, so skip ahead)

Love's Labours

Loves Labours, a documentary. from Shakespeare on Vimeo.

The World's a Stage

Although the music video isn't online yet, here's a clip from it.

 

Very cool stuff.

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The four learning outcomes for the course were 1) to gain Shakespeare literacy, 2) to critically analyze Shakespeare, 3) to engage Shakespeare creatively and 4) to share Shakespeare.

1) With a whole course devoted to Shakespeare, the themes and methods woven among all of Shakespeare's works were more evident to me. The text became more interesting than intimidating. I still need a little help from class or from sites like Shmoop and Sparknotes. But after reading those notes I can read the original Shakespeare and appreciate the way he said it more than the way Shmoop or Sparknotes said it.

2) I think most of my critical analysis has been done vicariously through classmates, in class discussions and in our Engaging Shakespeare night. But I have tried harder to critically analyze the text than I did earlier this semester. Earlier I blogged about the word play in Love's Labours Lost, to try and look at the words and writing itself.

Maybe I haven't done very much literary analysis, but I have tried to figure out why Shakespeare did what he did, and why he chose the themes he did. Most recently I did this type of analysis with King Lear.

3) Engaging Shakespeare creatively has been the easiest for me. I try to be creative with everything I do, especially in a literature class like this that opens itself up to creativity. During this second half of the semester my creative efforts were focused more on "Engaging Shakespeare" than on reading plays, but I tried to be creative with our presentation.

Exhibit A - I designed this logo for the event:

4) Other than tweeting and Facebooking about the Engaging Shakespeare event, I failed at this. I had intentions to live tweet King Lear, but haven't done it yet. Maybe I still will sometime during finals week.

I did do a lot to share Engaging Shakespeare over the Internet. I made a Facebook group and invited any Facebook friends who are at or around BYU, and I tweeted through my account and The Daily Universe account as often as I thought I could get away with.

But I'm not sure if all of that was really affected. It would have been interesting to find out how many people came to our event because of Facebook or Twitter. My guess is that most (if not all) people found out through more personal contact, like being invited by a spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/roommate/friend, etc.

It will be exciting to see the future of our Engaging Shakespeare site. As more and more people find our projects over YouTube, Vimeo or Connexions, I hope the dialogue continues.

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I thoroughly enjoyed this class and it will be among my favorite memories of being a BYU student. Besides learning about Shakespeare or literature, I gained knowledge and experience that I'm sure will help me in multiple ways in the future.

Free publicity

"Engaging Shakespeare" is in The Daily Universe today!

Shakespeare: Not just for the 17th century

Of course, I used my connections with the paper. But all I did was suggest the idea to the campus desk editors. It was everyone else who decided to assign the story, write it, take photos and put it on the front page. So it's not just me commandeering the Universe. :)

Photo by Luke Hansen

Averill and Anthony look good on the front page!

At this point, we have 36 people who have RSVP'd on the Facebook event page. And most of them are members of our class. But, I did get a response from a teacher at Summit Academy in Draper who was interested in bringing her ninth and tenth graders. I hope to see them there!

And I'm sure we'll get a few more who don't RSVP on Facebook, of course. I just hope there's the perfect number of people. I sent hundreds of emails, tweeted from my account and The Daily Universe account, and we're in the newspaper, but pair that with the short notice and the fact that it takes place on a Friday night during the holiday season and finals season, and I think it will all balance out.

Photo by Luke Hansen

We're about to run through a dress rehearsal for class today. Wish us luck!

And RSVP!

Long time no blog

Hey Shakespeare fans,

It's literally been 11 days since I last updated ye olde Shakespeare blog. I don't really have a good excuse, other than that I've been busier that normal. But I finally turned in my 20-page paper for my political science class, and I got through today's crazy day at The Daily Universe ... so I'm ready to talk Shakespeare.

Since my last foray into Shakespeare and social media, not a whole lot has happened. No one responded to any of my tweets. I did get Janet Somerville to follow me on both her personal Twitter account and her literature teacher account. Unfortunately, I haven't tweeted about Shakespeare since! So I've probably disappointed her, haha.

My new plan is to "live tweet" while I continue reading King Lear. My live blogging for Julius Caesar was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. I'm hoping that live tweeting will be less effort and yet have more of an audience. I'll just be sure to add #Shakespeare and #KingLear to all my tweets, and then anyone who happens to be looking for Shakespeare and King Lear tweets will find mine. There's a smaller chance that someone would come across my blog.

So, we'll see how it goes.

Most of my energy for this Shakespeare class lately has been the final project. Austin and I have been assigned to get the word out about all the other final projects, and put together an event to show them off. It's been fun to collaborate and get ideas. Austin will design a website that will preview everybody's projects. And we're planning on a "Shakespeare night" on Friday, December 9. You should all come! Mark your calendars!

Maybe you can help me with something.

What should we call this event? I've been calling it "Shakespeare night" or "the event" in my head, but we should come up with something catchier. A lot of our class has been focused on blogging and digital social media, and that's something we would be showing off for the event. So maybe "Digital Shakespeare"? Or "Cyber Shakespeare"? ("Cyber Shakespeare" would be better, with the alliteration and all.) And I could draw a logo of a cool, cartoon Shakespeare with a smart phone and an iPad or something like that. What do you think? Or what other ideas can you think of?

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumblarge_159/1182983557TqR2Sd.jpg

Welcome to Refudiatin'

So, I have a total of four blogs to my name: first, Adventures in Animation, a short-lived blog for sharing my sketches and drawings while I tried to get into the BYU animation program (to no avail); second, J Squared, a personal blog that has evolved into a source for all my newspaper articles and cartoons as well as some political commentary; third, J.J., Erin and Allisyn, the blog that tracks all of my adventures with my wife and one-year-old daughter (mostly run by my better half); and fourth, Man Stuff, a collaboration with guys from the Ward Formerly Known as the BYU 5th Ward who wanted to offer a counterpart to their wives' mommy blogs (my contributions are usually related to BYU sports).

Now, if I were to tell you that I was starting a new blog, your first reaction would probably be, "What? This guy blabs on and on and on as it is. He's on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Blogger, in the newspaper all the time ... isn't that enough already?" And after you come to terms with me blowing yet more hot air online or in print, you would probably guess the subject would be either trying to get into law school or our two months living in New York. But, nope, you'd be wrong.

Even if you had 100 guesses, you probably wouldn't think it would be Shakespeare.

But, yes, this semester I'm taking a Shakespeare class at BYU, one I've always wanted to find room for but couldn't until now. And one of the main class projects is a network of Shakespeare blogs manned by my professor, Dr. Gideon Burton.

I've always been interested in Shakespeare, I think because I've always been interested in a little bit of everything. Knowing stuff is just one of my favorite things to do. I like knowing current events, world capitals, old movies ("Oh, so that's why Citizen Kane is such a big deal") and classic rock ("Oh, so that's why The Beatles are such a big deal). It just helps me feel smart. And at the very least, knowing all this trivia helps me to be awesome at armchair "Jeopardy!" or it helps me understand all the pop culture references on "Gilmore Girls" or "Psych."

For some reason, I've always wanted to know more about Shakespeare. Shakespeare is probably the second most pervasive writing in the world, just behind the Bible. I would bet most people were introduced to lines like "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" and "To be, or not to be? That is the question" before they even entered kindergarten.

And around that age, when I knew all the U.S. presidents from Washington to Clinton and knew all 50 states in the United States, I actually looked forward to the day when I would read Shakespeare plays in school, instead of watching every token "Romeo and Juliet" episode from every family sitcom.

(Skip to the 3:50 or the 14:13 mark on the timeline)

In high school I read "Julius Caesar" and "Macbeth," and here at BYU I read "The Winter's Tale" and "King Lear." And now that I'm taking a class with Shakespeare as its focus, I'm excited to become even more of a Shakespeare scholar.

Two other bits of my personal history with Shakespeare: I've had two cartoons in The Daily Universe that were references to Shakespeare.

This was my response to the ridiculous hullabaloo over President Boyd K. Packer's talk last October.

And this was making fun of Sarah Palin for comparing herself to Shakespeare last summer (which also brought about the name of this blog).

And now, I'll close with this, since for the class I'm currently reading "Hamlet" (this is "The Simpsons," so there is some mild, not-BYU-appropriate swearing):