Happy 448th Birthday to the bard!
Today (Monday, April 23rd) is annual talk like Shakespeare day.
Talk Like Shakespeare Day,
an occasion for citizens from Chicago and across the globe to celebrate
Shakespeare's 448th birthday by bringing the spoken words of
Shakespeare into their daily lives. The holiday, which originated in
Chicago in 2009, became a worldwide sensation garnering extensive
national and international media coverage and more than one million hits
to
TalkLikeShakespeare.org.
Celebrate by seeing Being Shakespeare:
ChiIL Live Shows had a chance to catch opening night of Simon Callow's show, and we recommend it. Callow's strong stage presence among minimalist sets enhances the infamous words of the bard, interspersed with his life history. Although much of the historical data he includes on Shakespeare's life is speculation, it's fascinating nonetheless to put the plays within a time frame of his life and outside influences.
Tales of child deaths that plagued his birth family, and later
the death of his own son, Hamnet, at age 11, lend a human air and compelling back story. As the parent of an 11 year old son, that particularly struck a chord with me. Since we've been doing a long form exploration on how theatre people, musicians and other creatives balance their work and parenting, and how the two worlds collide and influence each other, this was an interesting angle. Simon Callow is a talented tale teller and a joy to spend an evening with. The British film and stage actor is know for his roles in Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Postcards from the Edge, A Room With a View and Amadeus.
*Tonight only, celebrated British actor Simon Callow's one-man show, Being Shakespeare will play a special Monday performance at the Broadway Playhouse, preceded by a birthday party for the Bard in the theater's lobby beginning at 5:30 p.m.
ChiIL Mama's favorite words invented by Shakespeare:
arouse amazement
barefaced bandit besmirch bloodstained blanket bump buzzer
cold blooded critic
dauntless dawn deafening discontent dishearten drugged dwindle
equivocal elbow exposure excitement
epileptic eyeball
flawed frugal fixture
gnarled grovel gloomy gossip
hurried hobnob
impede impartial invulnerable
jaded
laughable lonely luggage label lackluster
madcap marketable metamorphize mimic monumental moonbeam mountaineer
noiseless
obscene obsequious ode Olympian outbreak
panders premeditated puking
remorseless radiance rant
savagery scuffle swagger
tranquil torture
unreal undress
varied
worthless
zany
Sure, some kids today (and adults, too, for that matter) think of Shakespearean language as stuffy, high brow and inaccessible, but nothing can be further from the truth. It's not all thees and thous and M'Lord. He wrote for the masses and in addition to his timeless archetypal characters, loads of word he made up are in common use today, like PUKING. There's nothing snooty about puking.
According to Shakespeare-Online.com, The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original.
Below is a list of a few of the words Shakespeare coined, hyperlinked to the play and scene from which it comes. When the word appears in multiple plays, the link will take you to the play in which it first appears.
Incorporate these down to earth words for Talk Like Shakespeare Day, then click the links to see the source:
This graph can be found at http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html
Other Chi-Town Talk Like Shakespeare Contests and specials:
Shakespeare is being celebrated around the world this week, from Chicago
to London to Armenia, in recognition of the man who engineered more
than 154 sonnets, 37 plays, 1,700 original words and innumerable
phrases. On April 23 Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London will launch
its Globe to Globe Festival, part of London's Cultural Olympiad,
beginning a two month international event presenting all 37 plays from
Shakespeare's canon in 37 different languages (including Chicago
Shakespeare's Othello: The Remix, The Q Brothers' hip-hop adaptation of Othello, opening in London May 5).
Talk Like Shakespeare Day has even sparked a
movement, originating in Armenia, lobbying for the inclusion of
"Shakespearean" alongside "Pirate" and "Upside Down" as an official
language option on Facebook.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 2008 recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award, will be talking like Shakespeare throughout the upcoming birthday week. On the morning of April 23, Chicago Shakespeare's production of The Taming of the Shrew will be performed for Chicago Public School students at Sawyer Elementary School on the City's south side.
At Chicago Shakespeare's home on Navy Pier, Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Tony-award winning actor Ian McDiarmid begin preview performances of Timon of Athens, while the cast of Othello: The Remix prepares for the world premiere of its new work in London the following week. ChiIL Live Shows will be there to review opening night of Timon of Athens as well.
Photo courtesy of Chicago Shakespeare Theater. "William
Shakespeare" (portrayed by David Wilhelm) celebrates his 448th Birthday
on Monday, April 23, 2012 in Chicago, as part of "Talk Like Shakespeare
Day" by taking in some of Chicago's best-known landmarks including the
Ferris Wheel on Navy Pier.
Among the many visitors to Navy Pier, the Midwest's most visited
tourist destination, on April 23 will be William Shakespeare himself.
Those who talk like Shakespeare to "the Bard" will receive free rides on
Navy Pier's iconic Ferris Wheel from 10 a.m. to noon. Shakespeare will
dine at Harry Caray's Tavern on Navy Pier, where a special
Shakespeare-inspired menu will be available from noon to 2:00 p.m.
Diners who talk like Shakespeare at Harry Caray's Tavern will be entered
into a raffle to win a $100 Harry Caray's Gift Certificate, four Pier
Park Passes, free Navy Pier parking and four Tickets to Chicago
Shakespeare Theater's summer musical Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
TalkLikeShakespeare.org
is the virtual home base for revelers. The site features activities for
celebrating Talk Like Shakespeare Day at school, at the office and at
home as well as videos of famous Chicagoans talking like Shakespeare. It
also contains information about a video contest for internet comedians
inspired by the Bard's words (deadline for submissions is Thursday,
April 19 at noon) and tips on how to talk like Shakespeare such as:
- Instead of you, say thou. Instead of y'all, say thee.
- Rhymed couplets are all the rage.
- Men are Sirrah, ladies are Mistress, and your friends are all called Cousin.
- Instead of cursing, try calling your tormenters jackanapes or canker-blossoms or poisonous bunch-back'd toads.
- When in doubt, add the letters "eth" to the end of verbs (he runneth, he trippeth, he falleth).
- To add weight to your opinions, try starting them with methinks, mayhaps, in sooth or wherefore.
- When wooing a lady: try comparing her to a summer's day. If that fails, say "Get thee to a nunnery!"
"William Shakespeare" (portrayed by David Wilhelm) celebrates his 448th
Birthday on Monday, April 23, 2012 in Chicago, as part of "Talk Like
Shakespeare Day" by taking in some of Chicago's best-known landmarks
including Cloud Gate in Millennium Park and the bull statue at the Chicago Cultural Center.
