I had to read 13 Shakespeare plays and works in 6 months... the source of a lot of allusions etc became clear... it was dizzying.
I caught Patrick Stewart in THE TEMPEST, of course. I also have fond memories of both James Earl Jones and Laurence Olivier as King Lear (not in the same production,natch). And I once saw a great production of MIDSUMMER that shifted the setting to a 1950's high school a la GREASE. The latter brought all new meaning to the line: "Let us ROCK the ground on which these sleepers lie!" If not for Shakespeare, where would TOS have gotten some of its best titles?
Lol, I didn't realize there had been so much playing around with the settings for Shakespeare's plays. The only thing like that that I've seen is Baz Lurhman's (wow I actually got that right on my first try) Romeo + Juliet, which is IMO one of the better versions of the story despite the setting change.
In high school... I played Paris... I got an A+... teacher's only note was that I made a great man...
The High School I work at recently did A Midsummers Nights Dream and set the story in the 1960's. Oberon's crew were all dressed up like hippies and Titania's people were all beatniks.
How true, how true. Patrick Stewart staged a revisionist take of Othello about fifteen years ago; Stewart played the Moor, and Ron Canada played Iago, as a band of mercenaries in combat fatigues. I love Ian McKellan's Richard III, which transplants the setting to a fascist Britain of the 1930s.
Back to the OT, this is an interesting and insightful article about the recent job losses at the book publishers. It really is too bad about Marco and I hope the DS9 Relaunch continues on the excellent course he started it on. http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/12/23/publishing/index.html