The Immortal Bard has been a part of my life quite literally since my birth. My father, left to his own designs, would have been a starving actor, but he wanted a wife and family, so he opted to study medicine instead. A man unusually averse to defeat, he compromised by finding the one school in the country where he could get an MD and an MFA in English Literature at the same time. This led to a lot of our bedtime stories being far beyond Mother Goose, as they were part of his homework. In fact, my older brother’s first full sentence was “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your rears”. That’s not a typo, he had no idea what he was saying. But as children always do, we assumed this was normal. We assumed all children were chided with words like, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is it to have a thankless child”, “Et tu, Brute?’ or “I’d beat thee, but I would infect my hands.” I might be asked to lighten up with “You have a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness,” or sent back to the bath after being told “Would that thou wert clean enough to spit upon.”  I was often told I was “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” or that “the lady doth protest too much.” We knew what it meant to gild the lily, screw one’s courage to the sticking place, and have the world be your oyster. After all, “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. “can be read as a challenge.

My childhood exposure to theatre wasn’t limited to Bill; my folks loved Broadway musicals, and they had soundtracks galore. Heaven help anyone who catches me in sing along mode. We were military, so the opportunity to see live theatre wasn’t always present, but when it was, we went. By high school, we had settled in small town VA, and I was hooked, involved with Drama Club, where musicals were the staple, and the real geeks did one act plays. Sometimes we got to the big cities to see plays, community shows, or dinner theatre. My senior year, I played an old lady so often that my hair kept a silver sheen. Not much Shakespeare in those years, outside the ever-present quotes.at home.

But in college, as is so often the case, my world expanded. I moved to the PNW. I almost didn’t get into nursing school because I spent more time on my Shakespeare class than on the algebra pre-requisite I was taking at the same time.  “It was spring, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing,” and who could think of math? I saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the ACT, and I remembered that Shakespeare was so much bigger than his plays.. There is so much more. I kept finding new ways to love this work. The puns, for one thing, and the incredible grasp of human nature for another. I saw Macbeth set in the Old West at the Bathhouse. Any era, any gender, any time. The dilemmas are the same. Then I discovered Seattle Shakespeare, and realized I wasn’t limited to one show a season or every other Seattle Shakespeare has been a part of my world for decades now, which keeps the message fresh. A couple of productions that stand out are Wooden O’s Romeo set in a war-torn Slavic country, with UN Peacekeepers, and ethnic minorities instead of feuding families. This was the first time we took the children, who were quite young, and they liked it (there were guns!). Another big hit for them was the Wooden O Taming of the Shrew with the multifaceted David Quicksall as a motorcycle-riding Petruchio and the effervescent Kelly Kitchens as trailer-trash Kate. It was a rush when SSC paired with Upstart Crow to put on an all female production of Richard III, with such a sparse, dark and elegant set. And one of the best Romeos I have ever seen was the SSC production where the protagonists were actually played as giddy adolescents.  Made so much more sense... But for me personally, I think the paired Hamlet and Wittenberg cycle was perhaps my favorite. Darragh Hannah always delivers, and his stellar performance brought the tragedy home. But the chance to think about what Hamlet might have learned at University was such a refreshing twist, and such a brilliant companion piece. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Isn’t that what theatre is meant to do?

Seattle Shakespeare is a professional, all-classical, year-round theatre company that reaches across barriers of income, geography, and education to bring classical theatre to life for everyone in Washington State. Whether you're in a seat at the Center Theatre or on the grass at Luther Burbank Park or in a school auditorium in Wenatchee, you are part of Seattle Shakespeare.

Bill's Bash is Seattle Shakespeare Company's annual fundraiser, happening online for the very first time! Help me welcome new audiences, new students, new artists into this work by making a gift today, and by spreading the word. You'll keep these classic works alive in schools, communities, and on stage, for today and for the future!