Puzzle 27: Brush Up Your Shakespeare
As I’ve mentioned before on here, I’m a big Shakespeare fan, and part of the Rochester Community Players Shakespeare Program. My goal is to create a puzzle for each play we produce, which was easy last year since we weren’t able to do anything. But we’re back now, with a cool video project called Shakespeare in the Time of Covid, featuring five scenes from Shakespeare plays and two from Shakespeare-inspired plays—all reimagined a bit for our current times. I even created one of the scenes, but you’ll have to guess which one (or just look at the credits at the end).
Even better, after over a year off, we’re now gearing up for our free Shakespeare in Highland Park show, which is a dual-cast, dual-language (English/ASL) production of The Tempest, where each role will be played by both a speaking actor and a signing actor. (And, yes, I have a Tempest-themed puzzle in the works.) Staging a show like this is always a lot of work, and doing so while keeping everyone safe this year is even harder. (The fact that it’s an outdoor show in July, when we expect most of the audience will be vaccinated, makes things a little easier, but we will still have a lot of safety precautions in place.) If you’d like to help out, you can donate to RCP. The more money we raise, the less stressful our production meetings are, and the more time I have to construct new puzzles for here, so everybody wins!
Anyway, this puzzle doesn’t have much to do with the video project, but it is about Shakespeare adaptations. If you’re not familiar with any of them, 17A is a hilarious web comic that’s also one of the best ways to learn about Shakespeare; 31A is one of the best musicals ever made; 38A is an amazingly weird experience that I hope will be able to resume one day; 58A is really fun TV series (though some of the subplots in the second and third seasons are a little weak); and 47A is a kind of meh novella that I used because nothing else fit the theme. Also, there are at least three entries in the fill that are almost always clued with reference to Shakespeare, but which I clued differently. See if you can find them!
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Nate Cardin and Rachel Fabi assembled a great “virtual table” of free puzzles for this year’s ACPT, and they’re a great way to learn about lots of new constructors. (This puzzle is included in that collection, in case you like it so much you want to solve it twice.) You can also solve this year’s tournament puzzles, which aren’t free, but which were all really good.
