Want to read some pre-show questions with Michael Hagins? Check them out here! Shakespeare can be really hard for people. Elizabethan English can be hard to follow…twisted plots and relationships can be hard to grasp. But there are people out there (myself included) who love Shakespeare. Yeah, we’re Shakespeare nerds. And one of the most amazing ones I’ve ever met, and had the pleasure to see on stage, was Michael Hagins. He’s someone who has a firm grasp on Shakespeare

The idea behind Conquering the Canon is extremely simple, but also extremely complicated. It’s a one-man show about Michael Hagins, the only African-American man to have been in all of Shakespeare’s canon. Well, sign me up yesterday! First of all, I am a huge Shakespeare fan, so I’ll eat up anything about the Bard. Secondly, I love when Shakespeare is performed differently from the way it was written. There’s a lot of that these days, with gender swapping and such. And

For all of the plays written by Shakespeare, the comedies, tragedies and histories, I doubt any are as famous as Romeo and Juliet . It’s an age old tale of forbidden love, intense rivalries, and death. And although I don’t know why this play has been the Shakespeare forerunner for all this time, I must say, every time you see it, you’re going to see something different. From the numerous stagings of it, as well as movies, and even musicals (seriously, there’s a rendition

(Photo credit to Linda Johnson.) Next up on our Shakespeare tour, we have Quintessence’s Rare Accidents: Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 Abridged . This seems to be the season of Shakespeare, but I definitely would not have expected to see this one on the docket. But here we are, and what a ride. Rare Accidents clocked in at around three and a half hours, whittled down from five or so, and was something unlike I’ve ever experienced before. And I must say, for all of that, I absolut

Part of the beauty of theatre is that it is a collaboration of so many people and their unique jobs. Although we may not think or realize all of these things that are involved, they’re important to recognize when we can. I recently saw Caesar at Philadelphia Theatre Company, which was Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar edited down to 95 minutes. This edit was done by the incredible Tyler Dobrowsky. In the three years I’ve been running Zoe Writes Theatre, I’ve never really had t

Tyler Elliott, Sarah Stryker, Christopher Patrick Mullen, and me! In my time growing up in theatre, being a part of theatre, and even...

If there’s any Shakespeare show that lends itself to a million different variations, and lends itself well, it’s A Midsummer Night’s...

I know I’ve talked about audition monologues before, but I want to talk more about auditioning. Something that every actor has been...

As I’m doing more and more with Zoe Writes Theatre, my mother suggested I write a post about myself. I know not all of my readers know...

There is definitely something to be said of the classics. I think you’d be pretty hard pressed to find a professional theatre that...