Bard's Curtain Call

Send us Fan MailNARRATOR (WARM, INVITING)Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys,our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museumof Toys and Childhood Artifacts—where the lights are low,the alarms are set,and words wait quietly on the shelves…until someone notices them.NarratorAnd we see the action figure of William Shakespeare - complete with quill - surrounded by a group of alphabet blocks. He continues to talk about his life and literary career.ShakespeareMany scholars believe that it was around this time that I wrote the comedy As You Like It with its famous all the world’s a stage monologue.  By the way, the word sans in the last line of this monologue means without - as you can probably tell, much of my language was quite different from today.All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lined,With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slippered pantaloon,With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.Support the showThank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.