Hamlet's Dresser

Last updated
Hamlet's Dresser
Hamlet's Dresser.jpg
AuthorBob Smith
Genre Memoir
Publisher Scribner
Publication date
2002
Pages288
ISBN 9780684852706

Hamlet's Dresser is a memoir by Bob Smith. [1] [2] It was first published in 2002.

Contents

The title derives from the author's work as a dresser for a production of Hamlet at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut.

Author

BornRobert W. Smith
(1941-07-10) July 10, 1941 (age 82)

Robert W. Smith was born on July 10, 1941. [3]

Reception

Hamlet's Dresser was a Wall Street Journal editor's pick, a Barnes & Noble top choice, and a Book of the Month Club selection. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Hamlet</i> Tragedy by William Shakespeare

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, usually shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. Hamlet is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". It is widely considered one of the greatest plays of all time. Three different early versions of the play are extant: the First Quarto ; the Second Quarto ; and the First Folio. Each version includes lines and passages missing from the others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship</span> Alternative Shakespeare authorship theory

The Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship contends that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. While historians and literary scholars overwhelmingly reject alternative authorship candidates, including Oxford, public interest in the Oxfordian theory continues. Since the 1920s, the Oxfordian theory has been the most popular alternative Shakespeare authorship theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sylvia Beach</span> American-born bookseller and publisher (1887-1962)

Sylvia Beach, born Nancy Woodbridge Beach, was an American-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris, where she was one of the leading expatriate figures between World War I and II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Kline</span> American actor (born 1947)

Kevin Delaney Kline is an American actor. Kline is known for his over five decade career as a leading man on stage and screen. He is the recipient of an Academy Award and three Tony Awards, and has been nominated for two British Academy Film Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards. In 2003, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Greenblatt</span> American scholar (born 1943)

Stephen Jay Greenblatt is an American literary historian and author. He has served as the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University since 2000. Greenblatt is the general editor of The Norton Shakespeare (2015) and the general editor and a contributor to The Norton Anthology of English Literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edwin Booth</span> American actor (1833–1893)

Edwin Thomas Booth was an American actor who toured throughout the United States and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869, he founded Booth's Theatre in New York. Some theatrical historians consider him the greatest American actor, and the greatest Prince Hamlet, of the 19th century. His achievements are often overshadowed by his relationship with his younger brother, actor John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

Robert, Bob or Bobby Smith, or variants thereof, may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Folio</span> 1623 collection of William Shakespeares plays

Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is considered one of the most influential books ever published.

<i>The Scottish Play</i> Euphemism for the play Macbeth

The Scottish Play and the Bard's play are euphemisms for William Shakespeare's Macbeth. The first is a reference to the play's Scottish setting, the second a reference to Shakespeare's popular nickname. According to a theatrical superstition, called the Scottish curse, speaking the name Macbeth inside a theatre, other than as called for in the script while rehearsing or performing, will cause disaster. On top of the aforementioned alternative titles, some people also refer to the classical tragedy as Mackers for this reason. Variations of the superstition may also forbid quoting lines from the play within a theatre except as part of an actual rehearsal or performance of the play.

Sir Ronald Harwood was a South African-born British author, playwright, and screenwriter, best known for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007).

John Dover Wilson CH was a professor and scholar of Renaissance drama, focusing particularly on the work of William Shakespeare. Born at Mortlake, he attended Lancing College, Sussex, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He taught at King's College London before becoming Regius Professor of English literature at the University of Edinburgh.

Zoe Ada Caldwell was an Australian actress. She was a four-time Tony Award winner, winning Best Featured Actress in a Play for Slapstick Tragedy (1966), and Best Actress in a Play for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1968), Medea (1982), and Master Class (1996). Her film appearances include The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Birth (2004), and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Atkins (actor)</span> English actor

Robert Alexander Atkins Jr. was an English actor, producer and director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Shakespeare Theatre</span>

The American Shakespeare Theatre was a theater company based in Stratford, Connecticut, United States. It was formed in the early 1950s by Lawrence Langner, Lincoln Kirstein, John Percy Burrell, and philanthropist Joseph Verner Reed. The American Shakespeare Festival Theatre was constructed and the program opened on July 12, 1955, with Julius Caesar. The theater building burned to the ground on January 13, 2019.

<i>A Ham in a Role</i> 1949 film by Robert McKimson

A Ham in a Role is a 1949 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes short starring the Goofy Gophers along with an unnamed dog who is based on stage/film actor John Barrymore. The cartoon was planned by Arthur Davis, but was finished and directed by Robert McKimson. It was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 31, 1949, but some sources list the release date as January 1, 1950. The cartoon draws heavily from the works of William Shakespeare, with its gags relying on literal interpretations of lines from Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet.

Richard Dresser is an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist and teacher whose work has been performed in New York, leading regional theaters, and all over Europe. His first dystopian fiction novel, It Happened Here, an oral history of an American family from the years 2019 to 2035, dealing with life in a totalitarian state when you still have Netflix and two-day free shipping and all you've lost is your freedom, was released in October 2020. He is co-producing a documentary about Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, antiwar priests and lifelong activists.

Teena Rochfort-Smith was a Victorian Shakespearean scholar and philologist most notable for her contributions to the form of the scholarly edition.

This is a bibliography of books by or about the director and actor Orson Welles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Jenkins (Shakespeare scholar)</span> 20th-century American Shakespeare scholar

Harold Jenkins, FBA is described as "one of the foremost Shakespeare scholars of his century".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Pastene</span> American actor (1918–1991)

Robert Pastene was an American actor who appeared films, television and on stage. He acted in a variety of television dramas during what is known as the Golden Age of Television throughout the 1950s and 60s. On Broadway he performed in plays by Shakespeare, Strindberg, Brecht, Aeschylus, Shaw and Lillian Hellman. In the 1960s and 70s he had a significant career at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, which began in 1963 with the theater’s inaugural season.

References