About us
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players
--As You Like It, Act II
We are Shakespeare lovers of varied backgrounds: actors and non-actors; teachers and baristas, retirees and programmers; people who read Shakespeare all the time and people who haven’t read him in many years. Some of us can do spot-on accents, some can sing, and some are very gifted performers; many of us just gamely read our lines as best we can, and with the best will in the world.
No acting experience is required; just a willingness to read aloud and appreciate Shakespeare’s language. Try it out—we're a friendly group! The beauty of the language, the insights into our human nature, the humor, compassion, anguish and scope of Shakespeare's work make it a treasure that we return to again and again, finding something new each time.
How to Get Started: RSVP to a particular meetup (and please keep your RSVP up to date; let us know if you can’t attend). Bring a copy of the play, if at all possible. To prepare, reading the play or watching a performance are ideal. Or you can read an introduction or a synopsis. Some of our readers practice at home, to get a feel for the language. Regardless of preparation, there will be some confusing lines, and we often have different editions; in that case, just wing it.
What to Expect from a Readthrough: We read the entire play; it takes most of the afternoon. We start by allocating roles. You can volunteer for a particular role that you want. There are usually twelve to twenty or more readers. The roles with the most lines are usually shared. We usually don't follow gender in determining who reads which role. However, at an event host’s discretion, there may be some occasions when gender is matched for a character. Weather permitting during July and August, we meet outside in Volunteer Park.
How This Meetup Group Is Run: The Seattle Shakespeare (Etc!) Readthrough meetup group has several organizers (Aidan, Scott, Harry, Mitch, Randi) plus individual event hosts. They take turns as “Event Hosts” for the read-throughs. The organizers select plays and library locations, and they update the website information.
How to Use This Web Site: Each meetup date has a place for posting comments about that meetup; these are usually appreciations, greetings, and tips on parking.
If you want to discuss a play or a performance in more depth, or if you want to discuss the group itself, click the “Discussions” menu near the top of the page, and then click “Message Board.”
If you want to find out more about a play (such as lists of characters and how many lines each has), click “More” near the top of the page and then click “Files.”
Upcoming events
10
Read Titus Andronicus - In Person
Greenwood Library, 8016 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle, 98103, Seattle, WA, USRead Titus Andronicus with us!
Trigger warning: This is a Shakespearean tragedy. You have been warned.
Titus Andronicus has the highest body count among all Shakespeare's plays, with 14 deaths on stage. It also has the greatest variety of gruesome deaths, so it is hard to choose a favorite. According to Wikipedia, every one of these deaths has its source in a classical story, mostly Roman but some Greek; so it appears that Shakespeare was attempting to stitch together a "best of" (or perhaps "worst of") play. He also stitched together pieces of Roman history, with aspects of the Republic, the early Empire, and the invasion by the Goths all tumbled together. His Roman history here is about as accurate as his geography of Bohemia.
This is known to be an early play, and it seems that Shakespeare was still finding his feet as a tragedian. The revenge tragedy was a very popular genre in the years just before Shakespeare started his career, and he was likely imitating those plays and trying to outdo them at the gore game. He had some stiff competition (so to speak) from Marlowe's Tamburlaine plays, but seems to have held his own. So popular were these revenge stories that there was a contemporary ballad, Titus Andronicus' Complaint, recounting essentially the same events as in our play. In fact, it was exactly contemporaneous: it was first entered into the Stationers' Register in 1594, the same year as Shakespeare's version, and it is not known which was written first.
Given that this is Shakespeare, there is of course much more going on than revenge. There's also betrayal. There are political and social themes as well: what are the pitfalls in choosing a ruler? how is a leader returning from war to adjust to civic life, and do his soldierly ethics work in peacetime? There are the simultaneous strengths and vulnerabilities of family ties, and the opposing pulls of love, hate, and duty as the characters conceive them.
And there's Aaron the Moor, the villain's villain, who revels in evil itself. Even more than Richard III, he is aware of his evil and accepts it as his nature. While Richard is motivated by power, Aaron seems to have a pure, disinterested love of evil for its own sake. One might speculate that in writing Othello, Shakespeare was making some kind of amends by separating the evil from the Moor and placing it into Iago.
There are some good film versions of Titus Andronicus. Julie Taymor's Titus has a stellar cast, and stays very close to the text while introducing some very odd framing and surreal elements. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be streamable. If anyone still has a DVD player, it is available at public libraries.
It will be a wild and bumpy ride. Join us, but be careful not to fall off the tumbril.
Logistics:
Recommended text is Folger's, but we make it work no matter which version you have!
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/This is an in-person reading hosted by Stuart. He promises not to bring the chicken pot pies with the little signs saying "tastes like chicken" this time.
The parts list goes up at the end of the day on February 15. If you have a role preference, please send me a Meetup message with your top three choices. I will do my best to match everyone with their role choice.
On the day, we will read through the first half of the play, take a break, read the second half of the play, short break, then have a short discussion.
We look forward to reading with you!
11 attendees
Read Two Gentlemen of Verona - Online
·OnlineOnlineRead Two Gentlemen of Verona with us on Zoom!
Logistics
Recommended text is Folger's, but we make it work no matter which version you have!
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/This is an online reading.
Host: Thea; Zoom Host: Teresa; Facilitator: GloriaOn the day, we will read through the first half of the play, take a break, read the second half of the play, short break, then have a short discussion.
We look forward to reading with you!
3 attendees
Read Hamlet - In Person
Northgate Library, 10548 5th Ave Ne, Seattle, WA, USRead Hamlet with us!
Logistics
Recommended text is Folger's, but we make it work no matter which version you have!
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/This is an in-person reading.
On the day, we will read through the first half of the play, take a break, read the second half of the play, short break, then have a short discussion.
We look forward to reading with you!
1 attendee
Read Two Noble Kinsmen - Online
·OnlineOnlineRead Two Noble Kinsmen with us on Zoom!
Logistics
Recommended text is Folger's, but we make it work no matter which version you have!
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/This is an online reading.
Host: Kat; Zoom Host: Kat; Facilitator: HEWOn the day, we will read through the first half of the play, take a break, read the second half of the play, short break, then have a short discussion.
We look forward to reading with you!
2 attendees
Past events
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