The Book Of Will

For my last outdoor production in the Elizabethan Theatre this visit, I saw a new play The Book of Will. It told the story of how, a few years after William Shakespeare’s death, his friends got together and tried to assemble a complete, authoritative collection of his plays that ended up as the “First Folio”. It was fantastic. The actors were great, and the play ended up being a love letter to the art of acting, and theater, and the words and stories of Shakespeare. It told of their love of the man and the words and their effort to preserve them from quickly disappearing. In the finale the actors did a swirl of memorable lines from various plays, and it ended with a video collage of all sorts of people all over the world speaking the words of Shakespeare … as the words live on. As someone who has been attending Shakespeare plays for more than 30 years, I found it extremely moving. It’s one of those theatrical experiences where I just want to go back and see it again.
Trailer