My "Shakespearience"

Shakespeare has certainly always been a point of interest for me. In high school, I loved reading his plays and discussing the themes in my english classes. Although his writing style and some of the meaning seemed incredibly daunting to me, I enjoyed the learning experience.

I had the typical encounters with Shakespeare that most people have throughout their educational career. In-class readings and performances, watching Kenneth Brannagh movies, writing essays, and seeing plays.

I remember the Idaho Shakespeare festival visiting my high school and doing adaptations of Shakespeare plays that were intended to be more understandable for kids. There was one in particular, that was a Western/"cowboy" adaptation of Shakespeare's, "Much Ado About Nothing". I absolutely loved it. I loved how it was presented, I loved the humor and the story. It was then that I realized how much fun Shakespeare could be, and how if I learned to recognize the plot and purpose, you could take his work so much farther than the page.

I suppose that is what I hope to get out of this class most of all. Being able to take all the timeless themes that Shakespeare was so eloquently presenting to us, and run with them. To show them in a new light in my mind, and to be able to take them to a whole new creative level. I am an animation major, and I love characters and stories, but more importantly, I love when those characters and stories are real. They speak to the audience. They make you feel something. They make you think. I think Shakespeare did just that with his works. We continue to see that to this day as we read and study them.

And when we realize that we can look all around us and see where those themes have manifested themselves in other works and media. That is the part I want to study throughout this semester and in this blog. To be able to connect Shakespeare with other forms of media, particularly in animation and film. I hope to be able to find some meaningful way of taking what Shakespeare's stories and characters have taught me, and use it in turn to create stories and characters to edify the world.