TOD: When I was in seventh grade, I discovered Shakespeare and before the school year was out, I had read a half-dozen of his plays, including As You Like It and Macbeth. I later learned that summer that there was something called Shakespeare in the Park across town that was free, so I made my dad take us down there. That first season they did both of those plays and Measure for Measure.
It started a tradition that continued through high school and even after, whenever I came back to Louisville. When I was old enough to drive, I would go with friends and sometimes we would sit through the same production five or six times over the course of the two-week run of each show. It was a great educational experience, because you would get to see actors grow into their roles. The actor who played Hamlet one summer could barely get through the part on opening night. By the closing, he was much more assured.
I've seen plenty of Shakespeare in the park productions wherever I've lived. Often the shows are transformed into musicals with anything from rock to 1920s-style songs.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would be a production of Merry Wives of Windsor in Louisville one summer. On the last night (I had seen it four times already), the leading lady took ill and the director went on with a script in her hand, concealed behind a fan. Everything about the evening was magical.
As for the movies, I love the Soviet King Lear, Kurosawa's Ran, Twelfth Night, the Reinhardt version of "Midsummer's Night Dream," "10 Things I Hate About You," "West Side Story," "Scotland, Pa.," Zeffirelli's "Taming of the Shrew," "My Own Private Idaho," "Titus," Mazursky's "Tempest" and "Forbidden Planet."
