“Well-suited for today’s students…Teachers would find these videos an excellent resource for introducing Shakespeare to their students.”
- Brad Eden, Ph.D. University of Nevada

“An artistic combination of stage play and film. The video provides students with an accessible portrayal of complex characters.”
- Vicki Reuteur, Cazenovia High School, NY

“A TASTE OF SHAKESPEARE is the answer to a teacher’s prayer... maintains the language and key scenes of the play... tied together by an intelligently crafted connecting summary.... informative and entertaining overview of the key themes and motifs... a superb achievement - a wonderful marriage of modern scholarship and media production.”
- John MacDonald Professor of English Education - OISEUT

“One of the finest introductory series we've seen... Hip, entertaining and insightful... Highly recommended.”

“A series of guides... to make the characters and language of Shakespeare more accessible to students, A TASTE OF SHAKESPEARE succeeds admirably, and in addition provides an abridged entertainment that can be enjoyed for its own sake.”

“Sophisticated and tasteful, this is an essential purchase for the classroom, but can be enjoyed by audiences of all ages.”
- Video Librarian

“Exemplary!”
- California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse

“The scenes to be omitted and lines to be abbreviated were so judiciously chosen that it does not interfere with understanding the play.”
- Phyllis Levy Mandell School Library Journal

 

About the Teacher’s Guides

The Teacher’s Guide included with each video, provides discussion and essay topics that relate crucial decisions faced by characters in the play, to the conflicts that students watching the play must confront in their own lives.

For example:

Why does Othello fall prey to the machinations of Iago? How does his status as a warrior help and hinder him when it comes to matters of the heart?

The Prince in Hamlet has to face losses and decisions that go beyond the ghost’s command to avenge his fa’s murder. His girlfriend has broken off their love affair. His mother, now married to a man Hamlet detests, embarrasses her son by flaunting her sexuality.

Shylock, one of the merchants in The Merchant of Venice, is taunted and humiliated because he is of a different faith and culture than the people among whom he lives. Then, one day he suddenly sees a way of getting back at his tormentors.

Both Romeo and Juliet decide to commit suicide rather than face the pain of living without each other. But they are teenagers, Juliet only thirteen.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a magic flower causes a lover to be unfaithful, but can we honestly blame a flower for the mystery of why people fall in and out of love?

Having given away all his power and faced with his daughters' demand that he cut down the number of his followers, King Lear must decide how much humiliation he can bear.

Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth believe they can use the power of evil spirits to help them ascend the throne but once there, will they be able to live with the escalating evil within themselves?

Click on the above play titles to see video clips, stills, and fuller analysis.

Our Actors

Key Creative

Production notes

Sample discussion topics for King Lear

If you would like to have your school order a preview DVD or VHS of
A Taste of Shakespeare, click here.

To order a copy of A Taste of Shakespeare Script, click here.