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My first entry isn't Shakespeare at all -- since it's not until tomorrow -- but a contemporary of his, Thomas Nashe.
I don't know much about Nashe. I first became aware of him when I played Queen Elizabeth in a scene from Mary, Queen of Scots by Maxwell Anderson. Elizabeth quoted "'Brightness fall from the air; queens have died young and fair.' They must die young if they die fair, my cousin. Brightness falls from them, but not from you, yet."
About three years later, I saw a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Romeo and Juliet. To get on the stage for the scenes of Juliet's burial there was a procession and several verses of Thomas Nashe's poem were set to music. Philip Dennis, who was an excellent singer who also played Amiens in As You Like It, led, but it was the harmonies on the line "Dust hath closed Helen's eyes" that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, all three times I saw it. (I don't remember who did the setting, the RSC website was unhelpful, but it was probably -- in ascending order of likelihood -- Nigel Hess, Nick Bicat, or Guy Woolfenden.
Litany in Time of Plague by Thomas Nashe
The title wasn't meant to be a dig at COVID. It's just my favorite of Nashe's poems.
I don't know much about Nashe. I first became aware of him when I played Queen Elizabeth in a scene from Mary, Queen of Scots by Maxwell Anderson. Elizabeth quoted "'Brightness fall from the air; queens have died young and fair.' They must die young if they die fair, my cousin. Brightness falls from them, but not from you, yet."
About three years later, I saw a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Romeo and Juliet. To get on the stage for the scenes of Juliet's burial there was a procession and several verses of Thomas Nashe's poem were set to music. Philip Dennis, who was an excellent singer who also played Amiens in As You Like It, led, but it was the harmonies on the line "Dust hath closed Helen's eyes" that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, all three times I saw it. (I don't remember who did the setting, the RSC website was unhelpful, but it was probably -- in ascending order of likelihood -- Nigel Hess, Nick Bicat, or Guy Woolfenden.
Litany in Time of Plague by Thomas Nashe
The title wasn't meant to be a dig at COVID. It's just my favorite of Nashe's poems.
