Planning a school or amateur Shakespeare production? The best way to experience the plays is to perform them, but getting started can be a challenge: The complete plays are too long and complex, while scene selections or simplified language are too limited. "The 30-Minute Shakespeare" is a new series of abridgements that tell the "story" of each play from start to finish while keeping the beauty of Shakespeare's language intact. Specific stage directions...

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

"Measure for Measure," while listed among William Shakespeare's comedies, is doubtless among the darkest of his lighter works and remains one of the Bard's most popular plays. When the Duke of Vienna decides to go undercover in his own city, he leaves Angelo, his deputy, in charge and disguises himself as a monk to see how things progress in his absence. Angelo, who purports to be a man of honor and a stickler for the rules, arrests young Claudio...

The tragic drama of an old king's foolishness is accompanied by a scene-by-scene analysis, commentary on past and current productions, and an overview of Shakespeare's theatrical career.

Believed to have been written in 1599, William Shakespeare's "Henry V" forms the final installment of a tetralogy of plays, which includes "Richard II", "Henry IV, Part I", and "Henry IV, Part II". The play focuses on the events surrounding the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War. Henry, who is introduced in the earlier plays as a wild and undisciplined youth, has now come of age and ascended to the thrown following the death of his...

Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, uses his skill at controlling natural forces to cause the shipwreck of his old opponents, forcing them to seek refuge on the island where he and his daughter Miranda have been living in exile, and setting the stage for Miranda to fall in love with Ferdinand, the prince of Naples. Includes explanatory notes, plot summaries, critical essay, and illustrations.

This complete study edition of William Shakespeare's classic comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream includes background on Shakespeare's life and Renaissance theater, questions, writing ideas, and projects.

Valentine and Proteus are devoted comrades ― until they travel to Milan and meet Silvia, the Duke's ravishing daughter. Torn between the bonds of friendship and the lure of romance, the two gentlemen are further bedeviled by Proteus's prior commitment to Julia, his hometown sweetheart, and the Duke's disdain for Valentine. Thus the stage is set for a comic spree involving a daring escape into a forest, capture by outlaws, and the antics of a clown...

New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell makes a dramatic departure with this enthralling, action-packed standalone novel that tells the story of the first production of A Midsummer Night's Dream -as related by William Shakespeare's estranged younger brother. Lord, what fools these mortals be . . . In the heart of Elizabethan England, Richard Shakespeare dreams of a glittering career in one of the London playhouses, a world dominated by...

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.