cs
I’m misty eyed reading about your day and tomorrow. Thanks for all the
details!!
mc
Mary Collins
646-554-3076
[email protected]
On Fri, Apr 24, 2026 at 4:44 PM Clayton Stromberger <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Dear Casey —
>
> I want to be in Dr. Caldwell’s class…! And your festival… and your
> English Players…!
>
> Thank you for this inspiration. What a lovely Shakespeare’s Birthday for
> you, and via your email, what a wonderful birthday gift for all of us.
>
> I was in a Shakespearean swirl yesterday too — first, meeting with three 5
> th grade teams to make final preparations for the Winedale Festival of
> Play (tomorrow!), then dashing to campus for the on-campus performance of
> Dr. Brokaw’s first spring class (I’ve been assisting and also was roped
> into being part of the “dance band” for the sheep-shearing). An audience
> of about a hundred friends, faculty, and family members gathered in the
> good ol’ Parlin-Calhoun courtyard for a lovely evening with a magical
> play. A gentle breeze blew through the courtyard as solemn music — a cello
> and an oboe, played by Molly and Shreya, who also composed the tune —
> sounded out to awaken Hermione’s statue. David Weiser was among the
> audience members who admitted afterwards to being misty-eyed as the final
> moments unfurled with such grace.
>
> I’m with Laurel — the spring class students really came together and
> played with heart and with a commitment to sounding out those amazing
> words. It’s a class of 20 and their devotion to the program has been an
> uplifting thing to experience.
>
> There was so much to do yesterday that I completely forgot to tell the 5th
> graders
> at Maplewood that it was Shakey’s birthday…! I felt kinda bad about that
> later, but perhaps we can include Will in our Eeyore’s birthday song on
> Saturday afternoon under the pecans. I was remembering how when I taught 5
> th grade at Blackshear Elementary, my mom would make a cake for
> Shakespeare and bring it to the school and we’d sing...
>
> On Will’s birthday eve, a fifth grade girl at another school was
> practically doing pogo jumps when I arrived. “I’m so excited!” she told
> me. “Saturday is Winedale!” They know something special is ahead,
> something they’ve heard about since my first visit in September. We’ve got
> students from Austin, Round Rock, Westlake Hills, Gonzales, and — thanks to
> Robin Grace Soto — Fayette County all heading for the Barn tomorrow to
> share their work and play, and I can’t wait to just be there and take it
> all in. And a Winter’s Tale in the Barn tonight, and tomorrow too. As
> Katie wrote the class today: “How lucky are we?!”
>
> And today I got a bit teary-eyed again watching five 3rd grade girls at
> Blackshear — where my program really began in 1997 — perform the Mercutio
> and Tybalt fight scene in the library one last time before I headed out for
> the next stop. Avis, playing Mercutio, just had the sweetest smile as she
> said in a delicate voice… “a scratch… a scratch” while beaming and holding
> her side. I had to laugh too, it was so sweet and genuine and, because
> Avis is so tiny, also comical, like an echo of what we often experience
> watching a beautiful performance of Thisbe’s death speech in MND. They are
> our lead-off batters tomorrow and I predict the audience will be entranced
> for those four minutes.
>
> The kids are alright, indeed! I say amen, Gonzalo!
>
> Love to all of you, and eternal thanks to each of you on this list for
> everything you’ve done to make these moments of Shakespeare at Winedale
> possible. And keep up the great work and play, Casey and Viola and
> Sebastian and family…!
>
> At the Duke’s Oak we meet,
>
>
> cs
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *[email protected] <
> [email protected]> on behalf of Casey
> Caldwell <[email protected]>
> *Date: *Friday, April 24, 2026 at 11:19 AM
> *To: *[email protected] Winedale <
> [email protected]>
> *Cc: *Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums <
> [email protected]>; Katy Reedy <[email protected]>
> *Subject: *About Shakespeare's Birthday
>
> Hi, all,
>
> I had a busy day on April 23rd, the day we traditionally celebrate as
> Shakespeare's birthday, and I found myself thinking about our Winedale
> family a lot throughout. In these dark times, I thought it might be nice to
> hear about it.
>
> I started my day teaching from Ian McEwan's *What We Can Know, *a
> (post-)post-apocalyptic novel that, at its heart, is about the role
> literature and literature professors can play after the world has
> collapsed. There are many allusions to Shakespeare in the novel and if
> you've not read it, I highly recommend you do. Yesterday, we focused on the
> novel's depiction of future college students' lack of interest in history
> and whether they saw themselves in these students—most said that in high
> school they found rote memorization boring but in college they were
> becoming more interested in history as a conversation and contested
> subject. A hopeful note!
>
> Next, I hosted a Shakespeare Sonnet Festival by the lake on our campus.
> Many students came out to read and discuss Shakespeare's sonnets on the
> grass by the lake. The day was beautiful, sunny and warm. If you're
> familiar with the weather in the Midwest, you know April (but also May) is
> the cruelest month, so these truly spring days must be cherished. I broke
> the ice by reading sonnet 98
> <https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/read/98/?q=April,%20winter#line-98.1>;
> I
> noted that I'm happily married to a wife that was nearby, so the spring day
> was actually a spring day for me, but that I had spent many wintery Aprils
> in my earlier life.
>
> After, my Shakespeare course met to watch the Joel Coen film adaptation of
> *Macbeth
> *(with Denzel Washington and Francis McDormand). We read *Macbeth *a
> couple weeks ago and next week they'll be performing short dialogs from the
> play. The students really like the two lead performances, the creative
> choice with Kathryn Hunter as the witch(es), and what I called Coen's
> creation of a "Super Ross" whose motives seemed to transcended the world of
> the play.
>
> After a quick breather and snack bar, I went in to rehearsal for the
> English Players, a student group I direct that I have re-oriented around
> Winedale's learning through performance practices. We'll be putting on two
> scenes from *The Tempest *(a play I selected because we'll be taking
> students in the fall to the Stratford Festival in Ontario and it will be
> one of the performances they'll see). Last night we were playing with 3.2,
> the scene in which the drunken clowns brag about how much they can drink,
> plot the murder of Prospero, and rhapsodize about the isle being full of
> noises. We had good fun trying out different versions of Stephano's beating
> on Trinculo and thinking about how they advanced the story the story in
> different ways. Right now, she's flicking Trinculo on the nose in the
> belief that this is * very *intimidating. I remembered warmly David
> Ziegler's inimitable and drunken Borachio not wanting any colors colored in
> our 2015 reunion *Much Ado*.
>
> I then had just enough time to walk-jog over to an auditorium in the
> student union where I was hosting a movie night. I was showing students the
> documentary, *Grand Theft Hamlet*
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OloHiBOMPm8>*, *which follows two
> British actors during lockdown in 2021 attempting to put on a production of
> Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online. It's a funny and surprisingly touching
> look into two actors seeking to continue their art and find human
> connection during a time of isolation. An ensemble builds up around them in
> an inspiring way. The students loved it (plus the $200 worth of pizza and
> soda I supplied; I'd have included a keg of Shiner if the college would
> have let me; as an adjunct, I have my own version of the Sword of Damocles
> I must be ever-mindful of).
>
> Finally (and this may have been my favorite part of the day), I walked
> back across campus to the arts building for a staged reading of *Macbeth*.
> A student in my Shakespeare course told a friend with whom he shares strong
> Scottish lineage that we were reading *Macbeth *and they decided to do a
> reading of the play, just the two of them. Word of mouth spread, however,
> and this spontaneous event blossomed into fourteen students and two
> professors, homemade costumes, wooden swords, sound cues including a
> screeching owl, and a couple kilts. They improvised and improved all of
> this themselves in a truly ensemble spirit (with two Peter Quinces to guide
> the overall process). The pure spirit of play in the room would have been
> immediately recognizable for all of you. It was vivifying. I had no idea
> this was happening until my student told me about it a week or so ago; it
> was truly student created and led, I was merely a contingent factor.
>
> On my hour-long drive home last night, I was tearing up from the complex
> mix of emotions and exhaustion. This last event affected me the most.
> Thoughts swirled of the production of *Twelfth Night *my Winedale
> classmates and I put on after our 2003 summer and of James Loehlin
> attending our *Midsummer *the same day he'd had back surgery; of Doc and
> the first students originating Winedale in the same spirit of play and
> exploration and how the practical origins of the circle created a lasting
> ritual; of my children asleep at home with my wife who is also a
> Shakespearean and how I'm about the same age my dearly-departed father was
> when he came out to Winedale in 2003 and finally understood the life I'd
> chosen (Doc, he was a Vietnam vet and the bootcamp structure helped with
> that a lot!); and of just the simple joy I could see in the students' faces
> as they experienced *Macbeth *for the first time last night.
>
> As I write this, my daughter, Viola, is engaging her imagination with
> Play-Doh, creating something she is calling a "boody puppy," while our real
> puppy, Sebastian, dances about her feet.
>
> In these frightening days, some of the kids are alright. Thought you'd
> like to know.
>
> Taking pains to be vigitant,
> Casey
>
>
>
>
> --
> Be vigitant, I beseech you!
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