Sarah Smith--books and beyond
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Chasing Shakespeares: The Play

After Chasing Shakespeares was published, my friend Alex Chisholm, who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, asked me if he could do a play version of it. "Cool," I said, "and can I help with the dialogue?" Many painful drafts later, I have a huge respect for the playwriting process and for the collaboration behind productions.

I learned a lot.
  • Spoiler: Mary Cat is the moral center of the book, but she didn't work at all on stage. We did a staged reading with a brilliant French actress. Guila Kessous, in the role of Mary Cat. Even Guila couldn't carry her off. In the play version...well, if you read it, you'll see what happened.
  • One thing that happened was that Rachel Goscimer took on a much larger role. "Well, isn't she dead?" Well, yeah. Chasing Shakespeares, the play, is a ghost story, or a memory story, about the relationship between a teacher and her student.
  • I'd done what I thought was radical surgery on the English court to fit it into the book, but we needed to do even more for the play version. All that lovely stuff about the Fair Youth? And Elizabeth? Gone (sob).
  • On the other hand, Joe and Posy both work brilliantly on stage. Posy turned into a wonderful character.
  • And, not so surprisingly, everything about the voice of Shakespeare works deliciously on stage.
The play's available free here. Read it, send comments if you've a mind...and if you have suggestions for improvements, contact me. We haven't had a full production yet; let me tempt you (mwahaha).
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