In Which Bitty Ponders Becoming a Hollywood Producer

In an e-mail exchange with a friend today, we were commiserating with one another about the difficulty of getting students to interact with Shakespeare.

They whine that they can't understand the language, so they can't read it.

They whine that they can't follow what's going on in film versions, so they can't watch it.

Yet the Danes/DiCaprio Romeo & Juliet of a few years back did well enough. Methinks it's all about casting.

Friend suggested that Johnny Depp, because he's popular with our crowd, should do a Shakespearean tragedy, whereupon I hit on the idea of financing it through the contributions of grateful English teachers.

I figure ten bucks from each of us should be enough to get Depp and a high-quality cast and director, as well as finance the other costs.

Yeah, there are that many of us and we're that desperate.