Book of the Month

Lady Romeo: The Radical and Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity by Tana Wojczuk

This illuminating and enthralling biography of 19th-century queer actress Charlotte Cushman portrays her radical lifestyle that riveted New York City and made headlines across America. With new research and rarely seen letters and documents, Wojczuk reconstructs the formative years of Cushman’s life, set against the excitement and drama of 1800s New York City and featuring a cast of luminaries and revolutionaries who changed the cultural landscape of America forever. The story of an astonishing and uniquely American life, Lady Romeo reveals one of the most remarkable forgotten figures in our history and restores her to center stage, where she belongs.

Link to Warwick’s (La Jolla): Paperback or Hardcover

Link to Amazon: All versions

Thinking Shakespeare by Barry Edelstein

Thinking Shakespeare: A working guide for actors, directors, students…and anyone else interested in the Bard gives theater artists practical advice about how to make Shakespeare’s words feel spontaneous, passionate, and real. Based on Barry Edelstein’s thirty-year career directing Shakespeare’s plays, this book provides the tools that artists need to fully understand and express the power of Shakespeare’s language.

Link to Warwick’s (La Jolla): Paperback

Link to Amazon: Paperback and Kindle only

The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood

Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” – or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare’s players perform. As full of twists and turns as a London alleyway, this entertaining novel is rich in period details, colorful characters, villainy, and drama. The Shakespeare Stealer is a delightful adventure full of humor and heart set in Elizabethan England!

Link to Warwick’s (La Jolla): Paperback

Link to Amazon: All versions

1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

Link to Amazon: All versions

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

In the years leading up to 1606, Shakespeare’s great productivity had ebbed. But that year, at age forty-two, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn—King Lear—then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. It was a memorable year in England as well—a terrorist plot conceived by a small group of Catholic gentry had been uncovered at the last hour. The foiled Gunpowder Plot would have blown up the king and royal family along with the nation’s political and religious leadership. The aborted plot renewed anti-Catholic sentiment and laid bare divisions in the kingdom. It was against this background that Shakespeare finished Lear, a play about a divided kingdom, then wrote a tragedy that turned on the murder of a Scottish king, Macbeth. He ended this astonishing year with a third masterpiece no less steeped in current events and concerns: Antony and Cleopatra.

This month’s book was suggested by Laura Ganz-Holtan. Thank you, Laura!

Link to Warwick’s (La Jolla): Paperback or Hardcover

Link to Amazon: All versions

As She Likes It by Lori M. Myers et al.

As She Likes It is an anthology of short plays that features women from Shakespeare’s canon. The characters step outside of the male-dominated context of their original works, sometimes into another time and place. These familiar women from classic stories may have had muted voices in Shakespeare’s plays, but here they take center stage to discuss the choices they have made and navigate the power structures that have controlled their lives. These plays offer great roles for women, opportunities for thoughtful scene study, educational exploration and a larger conversation about how these women’s stories resonate in our current era. Written by Lori M. Myers, Sean Adams, Marjorie Bicknell, David Nice, Sue Lange, Barbara Trainin Blank and Sandra Fenichel Asher

Link to Dramatic Publishing: Script

Women of Will: The Remarkable Evolution of Shakespeare’s Female Characters by Tina Packer

Women of Will is a fierce and funny exploration of Shakespeare’s understanding of the feminine. Tina Packer, one of our foremost Shakespeare experts, shows that Shakespeare began, in his early comedies, by writing women as shrews to be tamed or as sweet little things with no independence of thought. The women of the history plays are much more interesting, beginning with Joan of Arc. Then, with the extraordinary Juliet, there is a dramatic shift: suddenly Shakespeare’s women have depth, motivation, and understanding of life more than equal to that of the men. As Shakespeare ceases to write women as predictable caricatures and starts writing them from the inside, his women become as dimensional, spirited, spiritual, active, and sexual as any of his male characters. Wondering if Shakespeare had fallen in love (Packer considers with whom, and what she may have been like), the author observes that from Juliet on, Shakespeare’s characters demonstrate that when women and men are equal in status and passion, they can—and do—change the world.

Link to Warwick’s (La Jolla): Paperback or Hardcover

Link to Amazon: Paperback

Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions by Barry Edelstein

From renowned Shakespearean director Barry Edelstein comes Bardisms: a straightforward, accessible guide to using Shakespeare’s wit and wisdom at special occasions of every type. Over the course of his career, Edelstein has directed more than half of Shakespeare’s plays, and he brings all his passion, insight, and years of study to Bardisms.

Link to Warwick’s (La Jolla): Paperback or Hardcover

Link to Amazon: All versions