The Hamlet Project

This reveals both the dangers and the benefits of being as immersed in Shakespeare as I have been all those years.
I’ll explain.
My first acting job included performing in a production of Hamlet – so I heard the text a great many times. Of course I read it as well. And I taught it fairly often, too.
That’s what I mean by rolling around in Shakespeare.

I’m also a playwright.

This usually feels separate from my Shakespeare life. Little bits of Shakespeare make their way into my plays – sometimes consciously but also unconsciously.
I wrote a play called fig. a: The Heart a little over a decade ago. The Egyptian Gods in it spoke of the Wandering Stars – their way of speaking of the Earth was the place “beneath the wandering stars.”

I swear I thought I invented this.

I did not remember this line. There are large chunks of Hamlet that I have more or less memorized but not this line apparently. It sunk itself deep into my brain and surfaced out of my pen when I wasn’t looking.