What we’re about
This Meetup is for people who are interested in getting together to read Shakespeare's plays out loud. Each person will take one (or more!) parts and we will act them out. At each meetup, we'll take one of his plays (chosen at the previous meetup and announced on the Meetup's website), assign parts and run with it. Be funny, be dramatic, have fun!
While our group focuses on classical works, we want to ensure our community has the opportunity to read plays from the modern era as well. In this effort, we have partnered with another great Meetup organization, the New York City Play Reading Group. In a format similar to our weekly meetings, this group gets together to read and discuss contemporary plays. You can find all of their events here.
Upcoming events (3)
See all- The Rape of LucreceLink visible for attendees
The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Roman noblewoman Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis (1593), Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to compose a "graver labour". Accordingly, The Rape of Lucrece has a serious tone throughout.
The poem begins with a prose dedication addressed directly to the Earl of Southampton, which begins, "The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end." It refers to the poem as a pamphlet, which describes the form of its original publication of 1594.
The dedication is followed by "The Argument", a prose paragraph that summarizes the historical context of the poem, which begins in medias res.
The poem contains 1,855 lines, divided into 265 stanzas of seven lines each. The meter of each line is iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme for each stanza is ABABBCC, a format known as "rhyme royal", which was used by Geoffrey Chaucer before Shakespeare and by John Milton and John Masefield after him.The Rape of Lucrece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJcWuhhMq9w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkfzcmnxZdY
Invite Link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81085586371?pwd=1gR9Fao4gWGCSTNCdzfbjxnrHA1xCc.1
- Richard IIILink visible for attendees
The Tragedy of Richard the Third, often shortened to Richard III, is a play by William Shakespeare, which depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England. It was probably written c. 1592–1594. It is labelled a historyin the First Folio, and is usually considered one, but it is sometimes called a tragedy, as in the quarto edition. Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy which also contains Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, and Henry VI, Part 3.
It is the second longest play in the Shakespearean canon and is the longest of the First Folio, whose version of Hamlet, otherwise the longest, is shorter than its quarto counterpart. The play is often abridged for brevity, and peripheral characters removed. In such cases, extra lines are often invented or added from elsewhere to establish the nature of the characters' relationships. A further reason for abridgment is that Shakespeare assumed his audiences' familiarity with his Henry VI plays, frequently referring to themRICHARD III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KysynA8xsQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1fkiixQbeM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMNNyda3sCk
Invite Link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81085586371?pwd=1gR9Fao4gWGCSTNCdzfbjxnrHA1xCc.1
- SonnetsLink visible for attendees
William Shakespeare (c. 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) wrote sonnets on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare's sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609.[1] However, there are six additional sonnets that Shakespeare wrote and included in the plays Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Love's Labour's Lost. There is also a partial sonnet found in the play Edward III.
## Context
Shakespeare's sonnets are considered a continuation of the sonnet tradition that swept through the Renaissance from Petrarch in 14th-century Italy and was finally introduced in 16th-century England by Thomas Wyatt and was given its rhyming metre and division into quatrains by Henry Howard. With few exceptions, Shakespeare's sonnets observe the stylistic form of the English sonnet—the rhyme scheme, the 14 lines, and the metre. But, Shakespeare's sonnets introduce significant departures of content.
Invite ZOOM Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81085586371?pwd=1gR9Fao4gWGCSTNCdzfbjxnrHA1xCc.1
