Lis's little touch of Shakespeare
Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak

Last summer, I/we saw several excellent outdoor performances of Shakespeare, so I thought I'd check what these theater companies are up to this year:

• Commonwealth Shakespeare will be showing Macbeth free at the Boston Common from July 18 -- August 10, and their tour of the parks will be showing Midsummer Night's Dream.
• The Publick Theatre will also be playing Midsummer Night's Dream (starting this Thursday) and Twelfth Night starting in mid-July.
• The New England Shakespeare Festival will also be running Twelfe Night (I know Shakespeare only wrote 33 plays, but what's with all the repetition?)
• And if I could manage to get out to the other side of the state, Shakespeare & Company in Lenox will be performing Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado and King Lear
• Oh, and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge is performing Pericles thru June 27th. [They're deferring Midsummer Night's Dream until next January.]

Don't know if I'll see any or many of these, but consider this a public notice for Shakespeare aficionados in the Boston area (as well as a personal reminder for myself).

PS: As long as I'm thinking about Shakespeare, I have to remember to bookmark Actors From The London Stage. They're a five-man theater troupe who perform Shakespeare with minimal props and each actor assuming multiple roles. Patrick Stewart's an alum of the troupe, so if you think of what his one man rendition of Christmas Carol, you'll get the idea. I saw their "Midsummer Night's Dream" back in college and it was excellent. The acting was so good and the story so engaging, I didn't have problems even when actors were portraying two characters in the same scene. [They try to minimize that, but it's not always possible.]

Anyway, it doesn't look like they're playing Boston this year, but every time I think of them I have to struggle to recall the troupe's name and website, so I may as well make note of it here. And if you have a chance to see them perform, whereever you are, I highly recommend it.