Ellen Geer as Lear

Photo of Melora Marshall & Ellen Geer by Ian Flanders

The ultimate play about fatherhood-Shakespeare's -King Lear--gets a sex change in this year's production from the Theatricum Botanicum. Ellen Geer, daughter of the theater's founder, Will Geer, plays the monarch wko has decided to divide her realm into thirds and hand them off to her sons. Geer also directs, along with Melora Marshall, who plays Fool, and the reviewer over at Shakespeare in L.A. gave both raves. (Marshall  is also part of the Geer clan, being Theatricum Botanicum artistic director Ellen Geer's younger sister.)   The play runs through September. For more information on it and the theater's other offerings, go to their site. And don't forget, their summer slate includes A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is always a wonderful experience in the outdoor setting.

Miranda and Theo

Photo: NejroN/Bigstock

 The photographer NejroN has 155 pages of images uploaded to Bigstock. He also posts on Shutter Stock and Fotolia and Dreamstime, among others, but I stumbled across his work on Bigstock. His website has just the basics--a very short bio, a portfolio of images and three ways to contact him. His work is fantastic--people, places, landscapes, up close shots of leaves and bugs. Concept shots. Models in costumes that don't look cheesy.  I'm using one of his shots on the cover of my upcoming novella Bride of the Midnight King and as I've mentioned, it was a particular photograph of two of his favorite models that has inspired me to create a whole new series. Last night I spent a few hours on the site looking through all 155 pages of images seeing what I could find. (I once found the PERFECT models for several characters in a book and didn't snap up alternate photos of them. And now I can't find them.) I will not do that with the characters I'm calling Miranda and Theo. They are vampires and like all the best vampires, they're incredibly stylish. (Think The Hunger meets Only Lovers Left Alive.)

It's funny, the photographer has paired his male model with a couple of different women, one a lovely redhead, but I am so wed to my vision of these people as Miranda and Theo that looking at those other pictures makes me feel like Theo is cheating on Miranda. Of course that could happen, in a relationship that's gone on as long as theirs has.

I cannot wait to start writing this series and I have to wait because my work is expanding to fill all the spaces of my life lately. But in the meantime, I have my images of Miranda and Theo and I have NejroN to thank. 

Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare

Over at Cafe Otherworld today I'm blogging about superstition and in the course of researching that post, I ran across this book by evolutionary biolgoist gordon H. Orions, published by the University of Chicago press last April. Just leafing through the first chapter (I love the "inside look" feature on Amaon) was enough to convince me to buy the book, which is subtitled "How Evolution Shapes Our Loves and Fears."  Here's a link to more information about the book.

Shakespeare's names--and you thought "Apple" was bad

I come from a family where given names have been recycled for generations. My sister's name was Mary and we had two great aunts named Mary (who both thought she was named for them). My brother is the third Robert in a row, I am one of several generations of Katherine going back to the 19th century. My cousin's name is Helen, one of my mother's sisters was named Helen and I had a dear great-aunt named Helen.   in my family, and not much imagination either. And you know, I'm okay with that.I have freinds whose parents got just a little too carried away while leafing through baby name books and the results weren't pretty.
Turns out there's a site that lists all of Shakespeare's names should you be inclined to bestow a bardic sort of name on your child.  The girls' names aren't bad, if a little old fashioned--Viola and Beatrice and Katherine and Portia, but God help the boys.  For every Marcus (Brutus) and Michael (Cassio) there's a Petruchio or an Iago or a Mercutio.  Check out the list here.

Shakespeare Calavera

Jose Pulido

Look what I found on Etsy!  This very cool Day of the Dead Shakespeare. The artist is Jose Pulido and his shop is MisNopalesArt.  Check out his Flickr page to see his latest work. Like him on Facebook.

Shakespeare Quote of the Day

O.J. Simpson is not Othello

It's been 20 years since Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered in Los Angeles. Nicole's ex-husband, football star-turned actor/pitchman O.J. Simpson was accused of the crime and the ensuing eight month trial became a media circus that, among other things, first brought the name 'kardashian" to public awareness. (The now-deceased K clan patriarch, Robert, was Simpson's good friend and attorney.)