Cocktail Party Fact: After a large amount of early success, when the Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) tried to open a big run in Los Angeles, LA Times reviewer Syvlie Drake gave it such a brutal review, it failed rather badly. The company then proceeded to take the show around the world to massive [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were notable Danish family names of the 16th century. The only time Hamlet uses the royal “we” in Shakespeare’s play is when he dismisses them in the third act. Hamlet sends them off to be killed in England in his place, and their fate is reported bluntly in the [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Shakespeare probably based it on another play on the same subject called UR-HAMLET (1588) by Thomas Kyd. The original tale dates back at least to 9th century Icelandic Sagas of Amleth, a Danish nobleman who took revenge after his uncle killed his father and married his mother. The name Amleth means dim-witted [...]

Active Years: 1564 - 1616
Position: Premier playwright and poet of the English language
Career Highlights: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, and pretty much every famous play with the word “King” in the title.
Career Totals: 41 plays, 154 Sonnets, assorted other poems.
Scouting Report: Although famous in his lifetime, Shakespeare’s plays were not published until 1623, [...]

Active Years: 1907 - 1989
Position: Actor and producer, knighted for his services to the theater in 1947, Olivier appeared in hundreds of stage productions as well as over 80 films.
Career Highlights: Hamlet (1937), Titus Andronicus (1955), Rhinoceros(1960), Uncle Vanya and The Broken Heart (1962). Olivier’s film production of Hamlet won Best Picture and Olivier [...]

Active Years: 1901 - 1989
Position: English actor whose first appearances on the stage were in amateur dramatizations of Hardy’s novels.
Career Highlights: Journey’s End (1928), Hamlet (1934).
Career Totals: As all English actors, Evans is off the scales in roles.
Scouting Report: Joined the Old Vic company in 1934 and was seen in variety of parts, [...]

Active Years: 1844 - 1923
Position: The greatest actress of France (some would say the world) in the 19th century.
Career Highlights: Hamlet (the TITLE Role), Fedora (after which the hat was named) Lady Macbeth, Phaedre, La Dame Aux Camilias (otherwise known as Camille) and La Tosca (which was written for her and then borrowed by Puccini [...]

Active Years: 1882 - 1942
Position: One of the finest actors of the stage in his era, later to become a screen actor and radio voice.
Career Highlights: Pantaloon (1903), The Fortune Hunter (1909), Hamlet (1922-23).
Career Totals: Numerous stage roles (including a phenomenal 101 performances as “Hamlet” between 1922-1923), 20+ Films.
Scouting Report: John Barrymore was a newspaper [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The mad scene in Act I after Giselle learns that her lover is of royalty and betrothed dances a tour-de-force solo which is equal in intensity to the mad scene of Lucia de Lammour and Hamlet.
Here’s the plot: Set in the Rhine Valley, Giselle, a peasant girl, loves Albert unaware that he [...]