The Book of Will

Although there is some profanity, this touching look at family, friendship, and community is suitable for most middle and high school students.

The Allen Elizabethan Theatre is outfitted with an elevator for balcony seating.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. OSF offers a variety of accommodations, outlined here.

William Shakespeare tiene tres años de haberse muerto. Sus amigos más cercanos y sus compañeros actores los extrañan profundamente a él y a sus obras. Cuando se produce un Hamlet pirateado y horriblemente fallido en un teatro cercano, se dan cuenta de que los renglones de Shakespeare se están perdiendo en la olvidadiza memoria del tiempo. Lo que ellos necesitan es un libro – una copia definitiva de sus obras originales, pero para crear uno, tendrán que batallarse con un editor poco escrupuloso, un borracho poeta laureado y su propia mortalidad de ellos. El concepto de Lauren Gunderson del Primer Folio de Shakespeare es una animada, divertida y conmovedora carta de amor al teatro y a la palabra impresa. Christopher Liam Moore (Shakespeare Enamorado) dirige.

El estreno mundial de El Libro de Will en el Denver Center Theatre recibió el premio por nueva obra de teatro de la Edgerton Foundation.

A pesar de alguna  profanidad, esta vista conmovedora de familia, amistad y comunidad es idónea para la mayoría de los estudiantes de secundaria y preparatoria.

El Allen Elizabethan Theatre cuenta con elevador para los asientos de balcón.

El Oregon Shakespeare Festival se compromete a la accesibilidad. Reconocemos a las necesidades de los patrones con discapacidades y nos esforzamos a asegurar que nuestras instalaciones y producciones les sean accesibles a todos. OSF ofrece una variedad de acomodaciones, aquí descritas here.

The Book of Will celebrates the work that the 1623 First Folio did to preserve Shakespeare’s complete plays. But what was left out of that compilation? Troilus and Cressida nearly didn’t make the cut; it was supposed to appear in the Tragedies section after Romeo and Juliet but was replaced early in the print run by Timon of Athens, probably because of a dispute over printing rights. It snuck back in for the rest of the run, too late to be listed in the contents. Pericles, a likely collaboration with George Wilkins, was not printed, nor were two other plays attributed to Shakespeare and John Fletcher, The Two Noble Kinsmen and the lost play Cardenio, nor was another lost play called Love’s Labours Won. Perhaps Heminges and Condell wanted to exclude co-authored plays from a volume that opens with the portrait of a single author, “Mr William Shakespeare.” But recent scholarship has detected the hand of other playwrights like Fletcher and Thomas Middleton in plays that do appear in the Folio (Henry VIII, Macbeth, Timon). The image of Shakespeare as an individual genius may be less reflected in the Folio than constructed by it.

—Daniel Pollack-Pelzner 

Reprinted from OSF’s 2018 Illuminations, a 64-page guide to the season’s plays. Members at the Donor level and above and teachers who bring school groups to OSF receive a free copy of Illuminations.