Well met, ladies and gents of the Cape Girardeau area! Fall is on its way and with it comes the library’s annual Shakespeare show. Each year, we invite the Stone Soup Shakespeare company to our community to put on a spectacular performance on our front lawn. In the past, we have pitched our chairs and laid out our blankets to enjoy plays like Hamlet, Pericles, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s really cool because you are right there on the grass with them so it makes you feel like part of the experience.
Some of you might wonder who or what is Stone Soup Shakespeare? Here is the quick version: The company itself was started in 2010 when Julia Stemper and Ishbell McFarlane worked together on a short scene from Romeo & Juliet during their time in Glasgow, Scotland. The two loved the work they were doing but wanted to do so much more with the whole of the story instead of just one part. It took a little bit of time, but after enlisting the help of people like Executive Director Jeffrey Golde and many others, they were able to get the company on its feet and rehearsing.
So far you are with me. But where does the name come from? The story of “Stone Soup” comes from a tale where a hungry village gets fed by a man who starts a stone soup in the middle of town. At first it’s just a rock in a pot, but everyone brings something to share to the soup until there is enough for the whole place to eat and be full. In the same way that the man convinces everyone to bring what they have to the dinner table, Stone Soup Shakespeare uses the talents of its crew, the props that they bring, and the imagination of its audience to bring Shakespeare back to the people and create something meaningful and fulfilling.
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For more detailed information on who Stone Soup Shakespeare is, their mission, and what their tour dates look like, check out their website.
This year, get your cauldrons ready to boil and bubble, and join us on September 21st from 6:00-8:00 pm for their production of Macbeth. A tale full of scheming, murder, and future-telling witches--there should be something to keep everyone entertained!
The event is free and open to the community. Feel free to bring snacks and refreshments to munch on during the show. I always pack a little snackle box for me and anyone who tags along. It’s good fun for everyone!
Haven’t read Macbeth? Interested in Shakespeare but don’t know where to start? The library has you covered:
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
One night on the heath, the brave and respected general Macbeth encounters three witches who foretell that he will become king of Scotland. At first sceptical, he’s urged on by the ruthless, single-minded ambitions of Lady Macbeth, who suffers none of her husband’s doubt. But seeing the prophecy through to the bloody end leads them both spiralling into paranoia, tyranny, madness, and murder.
This shocking tragedy - a violent caution to those seeking power for its own sake - is, to this day, one of Shakespeare’s most popular and influential masterpieces.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Hamlet is the story of the Prince of Denmark who learns of the death of his father at the hands of his uncle, Claudius. Claudius murders Hamlet's father, his own brother, to take the throne of Denmark and to marry Hamlet's widowed mother. Hamlet is sunk into a state of great despair as a result of discovering the murder of his father and the infidelity of his mother. Hamlet is torn between his great sadness and his desire for the revenge of his father's murder
Shakespeare: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd
Drawing on an exceptional combination of skills as literary biographer, novelist, and chronicler of London history, Peter Ackroyd surely re-creates the world that shaped Shakespeare--and brings the playwright himself into unusually vivid focus. With characteristic narrative panache, Ackroyd immerses us in sixteenth-century Stratford and the rural landscape–the industry, the animals, even the flowers–that would appear in Shakespeare’s plays. He takes us through Shakespeare’s London neighborhood and the fertile, competitive theater world where he worked as actor and writer. He shows us Shakespeare as a businessman, and as a constant reviser of his writing. In joining these intimate details with profound intuitions about the playwright and his work, Ackroyd has produced an altogether engaging masterpiece.