Shakespeare for all.
Shakespeare for all.
This was the genesis of Brevity Shakespeare, though I didn’t know it at the time. I was serving as an artist in residence at a credit recovery residential school for miscreants in Colorado. We were staging a gorgeous outdoor production of the play in the majestic Rocky Mountains when a handful of my lovable students confessed to the community that they had violated an assortment of the school’s non-negotiable rules: sex, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and sneaking out. They were summarily expelled and I was left with half a cast and two weeks. I recast the show and hacked a third of the script. Presto! Brevity. It rained, too. But the kids were fantastic and on my last night there I went out alone after midnight and rode the zip-wire we set up for Puck’s entrance a dozen times.