Great Performances – Twelfth Night (review)

I had wanted to see the Great Performances broadcast of Twelfth Night back when it aired on November 14, but didn't get the chance. After that, I had kind of hoped to watch it on Twelfth Night (December 5), but wasn't able to make that date either. So here I am, the day after Epiphany, sharing my thoughts on the production.

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2026/01/07/great-performances-twelfth-night-review/

Seven Ages of Man modernized

I asked Claude AI to modernize the famous "Seven Ages of Man" speech from As You Like It, and God forgive me, I actually like the result! Several months ago, as a kind of experiment, I asked Claude AI to rewrite the "O for a muse of fire" speech from the opening of Henry V. I thought the results were interesting, and I shared them in an…

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2025/12/25/seven-ages-of-man-modernized/

Seven Ages – AI “heavy metal” lyrics

Recently I was listening to a song that was created purely by AI, and I got to thinking, could AI generate song lyrics based on a theme by Shakespeare? Silly question, that, because it seems clear that these days AI can generate pretty much anything. So I immediately found an AI song lyric generator at freshbots.org. I gave it a prompt to base a "heavy metal" lyric on Shakespeare's famous Seven Ages of Man speech from…

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2025/08/27/seven-ages-ai-heavy-metal-lyrics/

“To be or not to be” – Further down the rabbit hole

A few years ago, I posted about the YouTube video above, which features nine well-known actors giving their renditions of Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. I had noticed that several of the actors, towards the end of the monologue said, "Thus, conscience doth make cowards of us all," even though most editions of the play render the line, "Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all." (

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2025/07/16/to-be-or-not-to-be-further-down-the-rabbit-hole/

Review: All Is True (2018)

When Kenneth Branagh's film All Is True came out in 2018, I really wanted to see it, but to my knowledge no theaters in Nashville were playing it. (I imagine it must have hit the historic Belcourt Theater at some point, but if so, I missed any announcement about it.) Over the past few years, I have occasionally thought about the film, but never got around to finding it streaming somewhere.

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2025/06/25/review-all-is-true-2018/

“O, for a muse of fire” AI rewrite

(In keeping with the theme of this post, the above image is, of course, AI generated.) A few weeks ago, I posted about a very interesting Shakespeare chat I had with the AI platform called Claude. This morning, after seeing a very good clip of the "O, for a muse of fire" speech that opens Henry V, I got to thinking, if I asked Claude to re-write the speech as if the play were set in modern day America, how would it turn out?

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2025/06/24/o-for-a-muse-of-fire-ai-rewrite/

William Shakespeare on Running

In my personal life over the past almost five years, I have developed a keen interest in running: I have run seven half marathons, I usually run somewhere between 12 and 15 miles per week, and I now work full-time at a specialty running store (Fleet Feet in Brentwood, TN). So just for fun, I did a little search on…

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/william-shakespeare-on-running/

Shakespeare still making news

A couple days ago, I stumbled on a little 10-minute piece from CBS News about Shakespeare's relevance in today's culture. It's always fascinating to me that, 400+ years after Shakespeare lived (and died), these works in an earlier version of our language can be so incredibly relevant. I also appreciate that in the interview clip with Ira Glass, he mentions how Shakespeare can suck for the modern viewer.

https://willywigglestick.wordpress.com/2025/06/10/shakespeare-still-making-news/