Elizabethan

Watch “Shakespeare Recipes: Wassail” on YouTube

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My special wassail recipe

I created this video as part of my “What Was Christmas Like For William Shakespeare?” class on Outschool.com. It should be a really fun class with lots of games, facts, fun, and recipes from Christmas Past! If you want to sign up, go to my Outschool profile page.

Special “Twelfth Night” Discount:

I’m offering a $5 discount off this class and many others with coupon code until Jan 13, 2022.  Get started at https://outschool.com/classes/stars-and-constellations-for-kids-pd2zSp6P and enter the coupon code HTHESNIF6B5 at checkout.

Posts 📫 for the first night of Hanukkah 🕎

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This week I’ll be celebrating Hanukkah with a series of posts and podcasts about Shakespeare’s only play to feature Jewish characters The Merchant Of Venice. I’ll have a new post about the play this week, and hopefully a podcast episode, but in the meantime, here are some of the post’s I’ve written in the past about the Merchant Of Venice.

1. Play of the Month: Merchant Of Venice

2. What The Merchant Of Venice says about the holidays

3. The Fashion is the Fashion: Merchant Of Venice

New Outschool Course: Christmas For William Shakespeare

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Title card for my new online course, What Was Christmas Like For William Shakespeare?
The goal of this class is to learn about both Shakespeare and the Elizabethan period through the lens of Christmas. I will begin by asking the class "What traditions do you think of when you think of Christmas?  We will then contrast the traditions of Christmas from the 17th century and now, including a brief period when Christmas itself was illegal.

 Once I have contextualized this period, we will then go through the plot, characters, and themes of Shakespeare’s most famous Christmas play- “Twelfth Night.”

Slideshare presentation I made about the play Twelfth Night 
The class will include videos, multimedia presentations, virtual tours, interactive quizzes, and online activities. The students will play games inspired by real Elizabethan Christmas traditions, get some festive recipes, and learn what it was like to be an actor in Shakespeare's company, when they performed "Twelfth Night" and other plays before Queen Elizabeth and King James.
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Hamlet, told through images from Disney’s Coco

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“Is not this something more than fantasy?”
“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.”
“Do not forever with thy veiled lids, search for thy noble father in the dust.”
“A combination and a form indeed, where every God did set his seal…”
“Thou knoweth ’tis common, all that lives must die. Passing through nature to eternity.”

So loving.. that he might not not between the winds of heaven, visit her face too roughly.”
“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
“The Serpent that did sting thy father’s life, now wears his crown.”
“O VILLAIN, SMILING, DAMNED VILLAIN!”
“To Be, Or Not To Be, that is the question.”
“Alas, poor Yorick… quite chop-fallen.”
“O my offense is rank. A brother’s murder!”
“A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”
“There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
“Thou art slain. In thee there is not half an hour of life.”

“Adieu, Adieu, remember me.”

New Outschool Course: Macbeth

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Just in time for October, I’m offering an online class for kids ages 13-18 about Shakespeare’s most spooky and cursed play:

If you follow this blog you know I’ve written a lot about this play before. Though this class will be more like a game where I teach the class using multimedia, games, and a digital escape room!

Me in my Shakespeare gatb

I’ll start by speaking to the students in character as Shakespeare, and tell them the story of Macbeth using a multimedia presentation.

I will then test the students’ knowledge with a fun quiz that was inspired by the popular mobile game Among Us. As you know, the game is similar to a scene from the play, so I thought it would be an appropriate way to test the kids’ knowledge.

Screenshot from the Gimkit game “Trust No One.” Like Among Us, players need to figure out who the Imposter is, but they greatly increase the chances of surviving if they answer the quiz questions correctly.

The final part of the class is a digital escape room I’ve created. I don’t want to give too much away, and you can’t play it unless you sign up for the class, but let’s just say it’s fun, spooky, educational, and challenging!

Screenshot from my Macbeth Escape Room.

If you want to sign up now, the course is available every weekend in October, and then by request after that. Register now at Outschool.com. if you take the course, please leave me a good review.

Hope to see you soon!