This Week's Reading Assignment

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for our final history play: Henry VIII: All is True.

This is one of several plays for which Shakespeare allegedly collaborated with John Fletcher (along with Two Noble Kinsmen and the now-lost Cardenio). It was written in 1613, just a few years before Shakespeare's death. We can date it with such certainty because the Globe burned to the ground during one of the play's first performances. (And yet Macbeth is the play with the theater curse?!)

This play doesn't get staged much, but the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is doing it this season as part of its canon completion project (with A Man for All Seasons as a companion piece). If you live in the Midwest, this is a rare chance to catch this play in production.

As always, we'll start our discussion at noon next Sunday. Enjoy!