Winter’s Tale has always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I look at its peculiar structure as a challenge rather than an obstacle, and when it’s well-executed, the finale involving Hermione’s “statue” strikes me as one of the most...
John C. Bunnell
Ninety-nine percent of this year’s production of Twelfth Night at OSF is sheer genius. The set design for its nominal 1930s Hollywood transposition is clever in all the right ways, nearly all the performances are exceptional, and the comic swordfight...
If you are a Gilbert & Sullivan purist, you may want to steer clear of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s current incarnation of Yeomen of the Guard — it is, I’m advised by the G&S purists in our tour group, a...
And so, after a much-too-long hiatus, we return — with, I hope, rather more frequent updating in the weeks and months to come. At the very least, I anticipate regular posts restoring the lyric archive from the old SFF Net...
I sent off some correspondence tonight to a friend who’d asked for a general introduction to the world of fanfiction — and realized, in the process, that my own essay on the subject elsewhere on this site was seriously out...
Five plays in three days — that’s the schedule for my annual visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, hosted by the Whitman College alumni office (which books the rooms and the tickets) and curated by our designated Whitman English professor...
OryCon begins tomorrow (where did the time go?), and I have an unusually busy schedule for the weekend. (Three panels as moderator? What was I thinking? What were they thinking? Don’t answer that….) Here’s where you’ll find me: Friday, 4...
Back from our annual pilgrimage to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival — as usual, well-stuffed with (mostly) very good theater. First up this year was Richard III, a solid traditional production on the Elizabethan outdoor stage, with the bonus that Richard...
Counter-intuitive thought for the day: reading a bad book can be good for you. Yes, really. Let me explain: From a craft standpoint, sometimes one way to figure out how good prose works can be to look at clunky prose....