“Brevity is the soul of wit,” declares Polonius in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” And perhaps short videos of lines from one of the Bard’s most-loved plays will expose the souls of their performers, too.
So The New York Times invites student actors and actresses to submit their performances of lines from “Hamlet” using Instagram.
The Times’s critics have been cataloging the recent bounty of professional performances of Shakespeare’s plays. And with several stagings of “Hamlet” opening soon, we’d like to see how high school and college students interpret key lines from the play using the cameras and apps on the smartphones they might be carrying.
If you are a high school or college student, use Instagram to record one short video of your performance of lines from “Hamlet.” (“To be or not to be” is only an example.) Then fill out the form and submit the link to the video below. You can also add the hashtag “#MaximumShakespeare” on your Instagram post.
The deadline to submit a video link is Dec. 1.
The best videos will be featured on nytimes.com later in December. If you cannot see the form below, it is also available at this website.
Charles Isherwood leads an online discussion about the playwright and his work.
MORE AT NYTIMES
The deadline to submit a video link is Dec. 1.
The best videos will be featured on nytimes.com later in December. If you cannot see the form below, it is also available at this website.
Charles Isherwood leads an online discussion about the playwright and his work.
Wherefore art thou riding a motorcycle, Romeo?
So might audiences muse at the start of the new Broadway staging of “Romeo and Juliet,” the first in the season’s plentiful Shakespeare productions, both on Broadway and off.
As the shows open in the coming months, fellow New York Times writers and I will be regularly posting commentaries on aspects of them, engaging larger questions about how today’s theater artists approach these canonical works, and inviting you to add your opinions about how vitally Shakespeare continues to speak to modern audiences. (Opera, ballet and movies will come up as well.)
David Leveaux’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which opened on Sept. 19 at the Richard Rodgers Theater, announces its point of view in the show’s opening moments, as Romeo removes his helmet (odd, that, for a swooning romantic; Mercutio, one suspects, wouldn’t bother) and reveals himself in the comely person of Orlando Bloom, clad in ripped jeans, T-shirt and hoodie, plus the kind of assorted man-jewelry you can scoop up by the handful at Urban Outfitters.
MORE AT NYTIMES