Posts by Anita Diamant
Memories of my mother and the owls
My mother had lived in the one-bedroom apartment for 17 years, and when she died in October, my brother and I assumed that emptying it for the next tenant would be relatively easy—after all, there was no basement or attic to empty, and she had always been a hard core balleboste, Yiddish for “mistress of…
Read More#METOO and Julius Caesar (Shakespeare Crush #8)
(Shakespeare Crush #8) It started with The Shakespeare Workout, a six-week class open to all, which turned out to be a full-body immersion in the works of the Greatest Writer in the History of the World. Taught by two of the founding members of Boston’s Actors Shakespeare Project, I rolled on the floor, breathed from…
Read MoreSister is Powerful vs. Sexual Misconduct
The daily dispatches about sexual harassment and abuse have unleashed a parade of celebrity perp walks, howls of denial, shame-faced confessions, moronic mewlings (“How am I supposed to know the line between flirting and harassment?”) and — we knew it was coming — “The War on Men!” Good people are shocked — shocked! — to…
Read MoreShakespeare on Harvey Weinstein (Shakespeare Crush #7 )
Why does Shakespeare still fascinate? What can a 400-year-old play have to say in the age of Weinsteinian rapaciousness, Trumpian hypocrisy, government deadlock and battles over the place of mercy in the court? For 15 years, questions like these have been aired and enacted at “Shakespeare and the Law,” a coproduction of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company–…
Read MoreShakespeare Crush #6 Summer Edition
The final session of the Shakespeare Workout was not as terrifying as I’d feared. From day one, we knew would have to present our scene and monologue — memorized — before a small audience of well-wishers. The teachers, Jennie Israel and Paula Plum, refused to call it a performance. We’d just be “sharing.” Yeah, right. When…
Read MoreMy new author photo
This was taken today, September 2, Labor Day weekend, 2017. I was asleep, when my friend, Ben Loeterman, took this photo. I NEVER take naps. Okay, I nap when I am sick in bed with fever and chills. But never on the beach. Until today. Perhaps this a breakthrough. Or maybe it was just the…
Read MoreNo, I’m not working on a novel. But let me tell you about my Shakespeare Crush (#5 in the series)
What are you working on? When can we expect another novel? I can’t wait for your next book. I am flattered by questions like these, deeply grateful for the enthusiasm and affection of readers who want to hear more from me. I know how lucky I am, truly. But because for some time now the…
Read MoreIt’s all in the text. My Shakespeare Crush #4
I went to graduate school in English because I loved fiction and poetry. I left graduate school because, in the words of poet Billy Collins: “…all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find…
Read MoreSay what? My Shakespeare Crush #3
We were lined up in rows, face to face, with a stranger. One of the two instructors of the Shakespeare Workout, Paula Plum, told us to address the following sentences to our partners: I like you. I love you. I adore you. I worship you.” We were to say this, taking turns, while looking one another…
Read More“What’s in a Workout?” My Shakespeare Crush #2
My six-week “Shakespeare Workout “was taught by the Jennie Israel and Paula Plum,* founding members of the Actors Shakespeare Project. ASP began in 2004 with the goal of closing the distance between audiences and Shakespeare’s plays. Since then, productions have been mounted without elaborate sets or costumes in non-traditional community venues: churches and schools and such.…
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