O! that you were your self; but, love, you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself’s decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
     O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
     You had a father: let your son say so.

Analysis

Sonnet 13 returns to the theme of procreation as a defense against death and ruin, compared here to preparing for a long winter or natural disaster.

The first line “O! that you were your self;” means that Shakespeare wants the man he is describing to remain as he is, unchanged, not aging. The sonnet is quite philosophical in that it asks how can a person have an identity if he is constantly changing? The persistent undertone of time’s advance bringing winter, decay and death, here continues. The young man is urged to shore up his house against this eventual fate. But what seems to emerge more than anything from this poem is the inevitability and sadness of this demise, contrasted with the love and beauty which stands up bravely to fight against it, and the tenderness of Will’s affection for the youth.

Will’s Wordplay

“Husbandry” again is a play on both domestic upkeep and becoming a husband.

Yankee Stadium, Gate 4, The Bronx

This isn’t the “House that Ruth built” anymore. Yankee Stadium is a baseball venue located in the south Bronx It is the home ballpark for the New York Yankees. It opened at the beginning of the 2009 MLB season as a replacement for the team’s previous home, the original Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923 and closed in 2008. The new ballpark was constructed across the street, north-northeast of the 1923 Yankee Stadium, on the former site of Macombs Dam Park. The ballpark opened April 2, 2009, when the Yankees hosted a workout day in front of fans from the Bronx community. The first game at the new Yankee Stadium was a pre-season exhibition game against the Chicago Cubs played on April 3, 2009, which the Yankees won 7–4. The first regular season game was played on April 16, a 10–2 Yankee loss to the Cleveland Indians.

Much of the stadium incorporates design elements from the previous Yankee Stadium, thus paying homage to Yankee history. Although stadium construction began in August 2006, the project of building a new stadium for the Yankees is one that spanned many years and faced many controversies, as the stadium was built on what had been 24 acres of public parkland. Also controversial was the price tag of $1.5 billion [1], which makes it not only the most expensive baseball stadium ever built, but the second-most expensive stadium of any kind (after MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey). [2]

Gates and Design

The stadium was designed by the architect firm Populous (formerly HOK Sport). The exterior was made from 11,000 pieces of Indiana limestone, along with granite and pre-cast concrete. The design closely mirrors the exterior of the original Yankee Stadium when it first opened in 1923. The exterior features the building’s name V-cut and gold-leaf lettered above each gate. The interior of the stadium is adorned with hundreds of photographs capturing the history of the Yankees. Sports & The Arts was hired by the Yankees to curate the nearly 1,300 photographs that adorn the building from sources including the Daily News, Getty Images, the Baseball Hall of Fame and Major League Baseball.

References

1. Dodd, Mike (April 6, 2009). “Baseball’s New Palaces: Yankee Stadium and Mets’ Citi Field”. USA Today.
2. Esteban (October 27, 2011). “11 Most Expensive Stadiums in the World”. Total Pro Sports. Retrieved September 2, 2012.

ACTOR – Devin E. Haqq

Devin has appeared Off-Broadway at the Barrow Group, Roundabout Theatre Company, and most recently in Epic Theatre Ensemble’s productions of RICHARD III/BORN WITH TEETH and MACBETH. Devin has also appeared in numerous regional theatre productions including AS YOU LIKE IT (The Arden Theatre) and CAMP LOGAN (Boston Center for the Arts). He is a graduate of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s MFA program. Film/TV credits include: SECRET GAME (on ESPN), SURPRISE (HBO promo directed by Sam Mendes), LAW & ORDER (on NBC directed by Arthur Forney), the award winning independent film, FRANCIS OF BROOKLYN (’12), and THE ASSASSIN (’07).

DIRECTOR – Ryan Mitchel

Ryan Mitchel grew up watching Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, David Fincher and the Back to the Future series. He didn’t know he wanted to be a director but as his moms says he always had a good eye. In college he took his first filmmaking class where he found his frame and his love for the camera. Since then he moved to New York to take part in the independent film scene.

After a couple of years of working for various production companies on many different projects, Ryan started his own production company with some fellow filmmakers. They are 23 Minutes In and like Ryan they are dedicated to making great Films.

Ryan is passionate about films and you can feel his passion in every frame he captures. You can find more of his work at
www.ryanmitchel.com

The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy;
Until life’s composition be recured
By those swift messengers return’d from thee,
Who even but now come back again, assured
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
     This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
     I send them back again and straight grow sad.

Analysis

Sonnet 45 uses the four elements as a metaphor for being a whole man; the more passionate two are always with the poet’s faraway lover, while he languishes behind.

Will’s thoughts and desires are with his faraway love; his life-sustaining air and fire are with them. When they’re gone, leaving him half a man, he dies a little bit each day of his grief. When he is more in control of himself, and his thoughts and desires making him whole, he momentarily contents himself with his lover’s certain health and happiness. But this lasts only a moment before his yearnings drift and he dies again.
 

Will’s Wordplay

Willy finds that his thoughts and desires are not so much in himself, as faraway with his beloved (present-absent.)

The four elements of classical Aristotelean science were fire, air, earth and water. The Elizabethans had no idea of modern chemical or physical science; all substances were said to be made up of these four elements. When deprived of two of them, air and fire, associated with thought and desire respectively, the body sinks into melancholy and decay.

Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground, Bronx

Rediscovered by students in 2014, this sonnet location and piece of history is the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground.

The Slave Burial Ground is located in the Hunts Point neighborhood of The Bronx within the grounds of the Joseph Rodman Drake Park, a few blocks from P.S. 48. The location is most likely in the south west location of the park near the willow tree.

How Was It Discovered?

In 2010 the Museum of the City of New York published online versions of more than 50,000 historic photos of New York City. Among the thousands of Bronx images was a haunting 1905 photograph entitled Slave Burying Ground.

The only other information available about the photo was that it was taken at “Hunts Point Road” — a street that no longer exists. Local history teachers wanted to know more.

From primary history documents like wills, newspaper accounts and old maps, it turns out the cemetery was “across the road” from Drake Park- the Hunt, Leggett and Willett family burial plots that date back to colonial times. It’s most famous grave honors well-known 19th century poet Joseph Rodman Drake, but the adjacent Slave Burying Ground has disappeared without a trace.

Since 1909, the NYC Parks Department has administered Drake Park. As time went by the cemetery grew more run-down every year, and finally, the youngsters of nearby PS 48, the Joseph Rodman Drake School, helped raise money to restore and protect the historic site. On April 12, 1962, city officials and the entire PS 48 community held a dedication ceremony at the cemetery and the students placed a commemorative granite plaque in the SE corner. [1]

References

1. http://hpsbg.weebly.com/

ACTOR – Page Clements

Page Clements is a professional actress, private vocal/dialects/Shakespeare
instructor and faculty member of the T. Schreiber Studio. As actress or dialect coach, her
over 50 credits include productions with The New York Shakespeare Exchange (Romeo and Juliet and Muse’s Song), The Roundabout Theatre Co.(Pygmalion), The Metropolitan Playhouse (Self, A Man’s World, The New York Idea), The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble (Electra), The Hudson Warehouse (She Stoops to Conquer), The Electric Theatre Company (Boston Marriage, The Maids, Lettice and Loveage, A Perfect Ganesh, The Benefactors), and The Gloria Maddox/T Schreiber Theatre (Better Living.) Backstage Magazine’s Favorite Vocal Coach and Favorite Dialect Coach of 2010. Member AEA.

www.bestvocalwarmups.com
Twitter: @pageclements
Linked In: Page Clements
Facebook: Page Clements

DIRECTOR – Michael Luppino

Michael Luppino knows the changing landscape of storytelling through images from the inside out. He directs and shoots while applying what he sees as the upside of digital: the ability to work in a fast, light and cost-effective manner.

After graduating from Ohio University with a major in photography, Luppino became fascinated with iconic New York photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom he worked as an assistant. He was mentored by still-life director/photographer and advertising industry legend Phil Marco, who spearheaded classic national TV commercial projects and tabletop photography campaigns for clients ranging from Perugina chocolate to the Marine Corps.

Eventually, Luppino applied lessons he learned from Marco by branching off from exclusively doing still photography to directing television commercials. The advertising agency Deutsch Inc. hired Luppino to shoot ads for IKEA and soon after recommended him to shoot ads and direct TV commercials for IKEA Canada. Luppino became a forerunner of performing both jobs: shooting still photography and directing commercials. This is the skillset that he continues to use and offer his clients today. “The truth is that in both worlds,” says Luppino, “it all boils down to unique storytelling and the beauty shot.”

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish’d for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
     Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
     Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eyes’ delight.

Analysis

Sonnet 47 finds a solution to Sonnet 46’s battle of loving with the heart versus the eye: You can’t have one without the other.

Bill’s heart and eyes have reached a mutually beneficial understanding: when he yearns for the sight of his beloved, or when his heart is pining, he will look at a painting and both will share succor. At other times, his heart will “see” his beloved in some memory. So whether in painting or in imagination, the lovers are always together. His thoughts are always with the object of his affections. If his thoughts are,sleeping, the painting will delight his eyes and thus awake his heart.

Will’s Wordplay

To be “in love with sighs” refers to an addiction to sad thoughts. Sighs were considered bad for your health, each sigh taking a drop of blood from the heart. Will, you’re such a masochist!

The “painted banquet” is the portrait of his love that gives his heart and eye their sustenance

Clason Point, The Bronx

Today’s sonnet takes us back to the New York City mainland. Clason Point is a peninsula geographically located in the South Bronx. The area includes a collection of neighborhoods including: Bronx River, Harding Park, Soundview-Bruckner, and Soundview.

Soundview Avenue is the primary thoroughfare through Clason Point. Soundview Avenue once stretched from White Plains Road and O’brien Avenue in Harding Park to Westchester and Morrison Avenues in Soundview-Bruckner before the construction of the Bronx River Parkway. It was then known as Clason’s Point Road. The Bruckner Expressway which now bisects the area along the center was once known as Ludlow Avenue.

The small peninsula of the Bronx defined by the Bronx River, Pugsley’s Creek, and the East River is known as Clason (pronounced Clawson) Point. However, it has had several names over the years. In ancient times, the Bronx River area to the West was known to the Siwanoys, who spoke Algonquian,[1] as “Aquahung”. The site of a large Native American settlement, comprising more than seventy dwellings, Clason Point was then known to natives as “Snakapins”, or “Land By The Two Waters”.[2] There was a local and plentiful food source of oak acorn nuts for grinding purposes.

Europeans began settling the region in the early 17th century, and the Cornell family built the first permanent European settlement in the spit of land first known as Snakipins by the Indians. An English settler, Thomas Cornell, began farming here from 1654, for which the area became known as Cornell’s Neck.[1] Later the area was known as Clason Point, named after Isaac Clason, a Scottish merchant and a major land owner.[3] Development in the 19th century soon attracted resort seekers and the area became known for its amusements and entertainment. From 1883-1927, it was the site of the Clason Point Military Academy.[1][3] In the 1640s a series of skirmishes between the Cornells and the Siwanoy, known as the Pig Wars, were led by Chief Wampage, the Siwanoy sachem believed to be the Indian leader who killed Anne Hutchinson and her children in 1643 at Split Rock, now in the northern Bronx. A passing ship rescued the Cornells, and they returned to their home the year after Wampage’s last raid. Britisher Thomas Pell arrived at a treaty in 1654 with several Siwanoy sachems, including Wampage, that the Dutch authorities didn’t recognize. This disagreement was rendered moot in 1664 when the British fleet appeared in the harbor and the Dutch capitulated.

Clason Point in the early 20th century was an era of trolley cars on the main thoroughfare, Soundview Avenue or, as it was were, Clason Point Road. Clason Point was a mixture of mansions, farmland and plenty of undeveloped fields and swampland. There were ferryboat and steamer excursions from “The Point” to downtown (Manhattan) as well as local service across the East River to College Point, Queens. The last boat to College Point terminated during World War II.[1]The area was then known for dance halls, roller coasters, picnic groves and baseball games, as well as the world’s largest saltwater outdoor swimming pool known as “The Inkwell”. There was a volunteer fire department,a small airport, docks for sailboats and motorboats, saloons, and novelty shops. The amusement park rides and novelties in the Harding Park area of Clason Point was then known as “The Coney Island of the Bronx”.

By the middle 19th century Clason Point had many farmhouses, despite its poor drainage. Even today the main shopping area is fairly distant, along Story Avenue, the Bruckner Expressway and White Plains Road. Its seaside location and views attracted seaside resorts, dancehalls and amusement parks in the early 20th Century, served by a ferry from College Point, Queens. Kane’s, a major saloon in the Clason Point area in the 1920s, featured Helen Kane, a singer who coined the phrase “Boop-oop-a-doop” and for which cartoon flapper Betty Boop was modeled. After World War II, Kane’s became the site for the Shorehaven Beach Club. The club was purchased by Soundview Associates, an investment group including Sylvester Stallone, and was to become the Shorehaven Condominiums, a gated community of 1,183 condominium townhomes.[1]

In more recent years, a citywide housing crisis spurred construction of modern multi-unit row houses and apartment buildings. Soundview Park, built on a former landfill and the largest in the South Bronx, has undergone a complete transformation including enhanced pedestrian access and completely renovated and redesigned recreational areas. Future plans in accordance with PlaNYC initiatives will create an urban oasis in this dense community; complete with recreation nodes, Greenway connections, bike/hike trails, designated fishing areas, a boat launch, and esplanades with skyline views. The neighborhood has become increasingly more diverse with a rise in varied Latin American immigration in recent years. Crime has also seen a significant decline as a result of a number of factors including enhanced policing techniques and changing economic demographics.

References

1. Jackson, Kenneth T., ed. (1995). The Encyclopedia of New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300055366., p. 239.
2. Powell, Bernard W. “Preliminary Report on a Southwestern Connecticut Site”, from the Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Connecticut, February 1958. Accessed June 5, 2007.
3. Lopate, Phillip. “New York, Brick by Brick”, The New York Times, June 18, 2000. Accessed April 6, 2008.

ACTOR – Cornelia Hanes

Cornelia Hanes is an actress and model with a great interest in fitness. She was born and raised in Sweden, but moved to New York during the fall of 2009 when she received a full athletic scholarship at LIU Post to kick-start her acting and high elite swimming career.

Acting has been a major part of Cornelia’s life since childhood, but during her time at LIU Post she really learnt how to step out of her comfort zone on stage and in front of the camera. Today, Cornelia is a Suzuki trained actress who has traveled around with award-winning “Re-membering Antigone” in both America and Canada, she has been the lead in many short film productions as well as in the NYSE commercial that was aired nationwide on CNN. Cornelia currently lives in New York City where she is management represented by Dream Maker Talent and STETTS Model Management.

Apart from acting, Cornelia is an ECAC swimming champion and a NCAA All American scorer. Despite putting an end to her elite swimming career, she continues her passion for sport and fitness through yoga classes, swimming, conditioning and light weight lifting.

Besides being fluent in Swedish and English, Cornelia also has knowledge of Norwegian, Danish and French. Casting directors, acting teachers, and friends describe her as a strong and energetic individual with a large portion of humor – just like a true Scandinavian Viking.

For film and TV, Cornelia is a mix between the diverse Uma Thurman, the hilarious Kristen Wiig, and the fierce Charlize Theron. She would be a perfect fit to play characters comparable to Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill, Helen from Troy, or Carrie in Homeland. Stay tuned for more exciting news to come!

DIRECTOR – Christine Stronegger

Christine Stronegger is an award winning filmmaker from Norway who is currently based out of New York City. Her awards include the Director’s Choice Award at Sacramento Film Festival 2014 and Audience Award at Katra Film Series 2015. She graduated Summa Cum Laude in May 2015, from Long Island University where she earned her B.F.A in Cinematography and Film Production. While attending the film program at LIU, she interned at Tribeca Productions. Since then she has been freelancing and worked closely with directors Katie Holmes, Dustin Guy Defa and Domenica Cameron-Scorsese among others. Christine has a passion for directing and has recently written and directed a short film called “Wanderlust” with actor Daniel Hilt from Foxcatcher, which just became an official selection to NFFTY film festival 2016 in Seattle.

iMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5203072/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user10252111
twitter: @stronegger
instagram: missstronegger

Being your slave what should I do but tend
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.
     So true a fool is love, that in your will,
     Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
 
Analysis
In Sonnet 57, the poet is portrayed as a content slave to love.

Bill counts himself as a slave, bound to wait upon the youth. He has nothing to do with his time until he is asked. He does not grow angry with clock-watching tedium while he waits to be asked, he doesn’t think bitterly on his master in this waiting absence, and he doesn’t wonder jealously what the youth may be doing and with whom, save to think sadly on how happy he is making those around him. This is what it is to be in love– foolishly in service and happy about it.
 
Will’s Wordplay
In a world where servants were ubiquitous, the word service was much more frequently used than it is nowadays. Shakespeare uses it only twice in the sonnets, here and in 149. This is the only use of it in the sonnets to the youth, although the chivalric tradition of devotion to a beloved (usually a woman) through thick and thin embraced the idea of service and slavery.

The couplet’s reference to”do anything” is about the youth’s licentiousness. The fears raised in the previous lines make it inevitable that this has a meaning of sexual unfaithfulness, a betrayal of love, a meaning that is enhanced by ill at the end of the line. The poet thinks no ill because love has made a fool of him.
 
Scholar’s Corner
Literary critics such as David Schalkwyk see this sonnet as playing out a relationship with unequal power. “This sonnet’s hyperbolic reference to slavery invokes more clearly the late-sixteenth-century, almost wholly pejorative sense of vassalage…”.[11] With the first lines of the sonnet, “Being your slave what should I do but tend Upon the hours, and times of your desire?” Shakespeare seemingly emphasises a class or power difference between himself and the youth that the sonnet addresses. Schalkwyk goes on to say “This declaration of abject powerlessness (i.e. aforementioned slavery) pushes the notion of vassalage away from that of feudal reciprocity toward a commonplace early modern conception of the servant as utterly, submissive, silent and undemanding”. During this period servitude was not viewed then as we view it today, but as something quietly accepted, linking to Shakespeare’s “servitude” to the youth as accepting the fact that his rank in society was less than the addressee, and that his position as “slave” nothing more than a simple fact.
 
References
1. Schalkwyk, David. Love and Service in “Twelfth Night” and the Sonnets. (Pps. 76-100). Shakespeare Quarterly, Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University.

Yankee Tavern

“Family owned since 1923, the Yankee Tavern was once a watering hole for Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra, and Babe Ruth (who was known to buy a round after the game). These days the extensive surf-turf-and-pasta menu draws a crowd of middle-aged fans and nearby courthouse employees. At the long bar in front, both groups chow on wings while listening to loud rock or watching a flat screen TV; in the narrow backroom (renovated by owner Joe Bastone who’s worked here since he was 10), art deco lights gleam off the pressed-tin ceiling, while cherry-colored wood chairs tucked under two-tops share real estate with banquettes painted bomber blue. Every bit of wall space pays homage to the home team:players’ posters, photos of Joltin’ Joe and Jason Giambi, a bat signed by Berra over the bar. On game days, when hours are often extended, dear departed Yankee fanatic Freddy Sez was known to stop by to bang his shamrock-adorned frying pan, too.” — Leslie Hendrickson, NY Mag [1]
 
Sonnet Project
Yankee Tavern was the featured location for Sonnet 57, performed by (name?), directed by (name?). The video was released on (date?)
 
References
1. http://nymag.com/listings/bar/Yankee-Tavern/

MAYA JORDAN
Actor, singer and writer Maya Jordan, is a University of Michigan graduate. She is thrilled to be in New York to continue in her performance and creative endeavors. Maya is a self-proclaimed nerd (for example, she reads Beowulf for fun), professional daydreamer, and volunteer enthusiast. Her goal is to be a light for people in dark places, when all other lights go out. Maya is so grateful for and would like to dedicate all of her creative pursuits to Robert, to her Mom, to her family and friends as well as to the memory of Jim Posante, her first mentor. Some people wear “I’d rather be golfing” t-shirts or have “I’d rather be fishing” bumper stickers well for Maya it is “I’d rather be doing Shakespeare”. Is it perhaps because she was spoon-fed Shakespeare from her mother who is an English professor, or maybe because some of her happiest performance experiences have been when in a Shakespeare play? Both are contributing factors. The main reason is the simple (and unoriginal, she fears) fact that Maya loves Shakespeare, the language, characters, stories and his great understanding of the human condition. So yes, Maya would rather be doing Shakespeare, it comes naturally to her and it always feels like coming home. In New York, Maya has been fortunate enough to work with John Basil at The American Globe Theater, Bare Shakespeare and Bradley Dean at the Singer’s Forum just to name a few. In 2011 Maya was featured in Never Say Goodbye Twice which won Best Comedy in the 48 Hour Guerrilla Film Competition. Some of Maya’s favorite Shakespearean roles to play include, Hermia, Kate and Caliban. Beyond Shakespeare some favorite past roles have been, Consuelo in Waiting Women with The Actor’s Project NYC, Donna-Mae in The First & Last Annual Homeless Fashion Show written by New York playwright Collette Johnson, and Winifred in Once Upon a Mattress. Please visit Maya’s website www.mayaj.com for more details, Thank You!

DANIEL LACHMAN – Director
Daniel, a military brat whose childhood consisted of constant traveling, developed an early interest and desire to capture and retain places in his life. This manifested in an interest in photography and motion pictures. More than a director, Daniel considers himself part of the emerging artists scene dealing with the contemporary meanings of art and human desire to share experiences. Daniel has worked in film over the past 5 years in both Louisiana and New York City. For more information, visit www.DanielLachman.com, www.daniellachman.tumblr.com, www.retrocamerareview.tumblr.com, https://vimeo.com/daniellachman

Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace itself with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins?
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains.
     O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had
     In days long since, before these last so bad.

Analysis

Sonnet 67 questions why Nature allows false things to mimic the beloved’s beauty and goodness, and how the beloved can even remain alive in such a den of sin as this world.

Bill wonder why the for whom he has such affection lives in such moral corruption. The youth graces to the sins of those around him, and sin looks better for it. Why do others anoint themselves with makeup to imitate the beauties he has naturally? They become false roses when he himself is a true bloom. Why should this young man himself live, now that Nature itself has used up all the power to create beautiful things in creating him? Nature preserves him in order to show what she was capable of long ago, before everyone else went to hell.
 

Will’s Wordplay

This sonnet is unique in that the youth has becomes the distant ‘he’, rather than ‘dear my love’ etc. It comes almost as a shock, as if you were suddenly to start addressing your partner as “himself”.

Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, the Bronx

Perhaps you’ll hear a croak of “nevermore” at Poe Cottage…

The Poe family—which included Edgar, his wife Virginia Clemm, and her mother Maria—moved in around May 1846 after living for a short time in Turtle Bay, Manhattan. At the time, Fordham was rural and was only recently connected to the city by rail. The cottage, which then on Kingsbridge Road to the east of its intersection with Valentine Avenue, was small and simple: it had on its first floor a sitting room and kitchen and its unheated second floor had a bedroom and Poe’s study. The home sat on 2 acres of land.

The family seemed to enjoy the home, despite its small size and minimal furnishings. “The cottage is very humble”, a visitor said, “you wouldn’t have thought decent people could have lived in it; but there was an air of refinement about everything.”[1] A friend of Poe’s years later wrote: “The cottage had an air of taste and gentility… So neat, so poor, so unfurnished, and yet so charming a dwelling I never saw.”[2] In a letter to a friend, Poe himself wrote: “The place is a beautiful one.”[3] Maria wrote years later: “It was the sweetest little cottage imaginable. Oh, how supremely happy we were in our dear cottage home!”[4] Poe’s final short story, “Landor’s Cottage”, was likely inspired by the home.

“Edgar Allan Poe spent the last years of his life, from 1846 to 1849, in The Bronx at Poe Cottage, now located at Kingsbridge Road and the Grand Concourse. A small wooden farmhouse built about 1812, the cottage once commanded unobstructed vistas over the rolling Bronx hills to the shores of Long Island. It was a bucolic setting in which the great writer penned many of his most enduring poetical works, including ‘Annabel Lee,’ ‘The Bells’ and ‘Eureka.’

Poe spent much of his life moving from place to place in restless search of literary recognition and financial security. In April 1844, he and his wife, Virginia, and mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, moved to New York, where Poe sought the opportunity for international acclaim. But Virginia was ill, and in early summer of 1846 Poe brought her to The Bronx, where he hoped the country air would rescue her failing health. However, in January of 1847, she died of tuberculosis. Poe himself died two years later, under mysterious circumstances, in Baltimore, MD.

Administered by The Bronx County Historical Society since 1975, the cottage is restored to its original appearance, with authentic period furnishings. A film presentation and guided tour help bring Poe Cottage to life. Visitors can see the bed in which Virginia died and the rocking chair Poe used. In the kitchen, the dishes on the table appear as if the great author had just stepped out for air.” [5]

References

1 .Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar Allan Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991: 302. ISBN 0-06-092331-8
2. Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998: 508–509. ISBN 0-8018-5730-9.
3. Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Volume II. Chicago: The John C. Winston Co., 1926: 1115.
4. Phillips, 1116–1117.
5. http://www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/poecottage.html

ACTOR – Leigh Williams

Leigh Williams has been working with New York Shakespeare Exchange since 2010. She played Constance in the company’s acclaimed production of The Life and Death of King John and Asnath in Kevin Brewer’s ingenious Shakespearean homage Island. She’s also participated in several of the company’s readings and ShakesBEER pub crawls. Leigh has been acting in the Bard’s plays for 18 years, and some favorite roles have been Hermione, Adriana, Kate, Ariel and Olivia. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity, SAG and AFTRA and received her M.F.A. at Case Western/Cleveland Play House.

DIRECTOR – Russ Senzatimore

Russ Senzatimore has worked as an assistant editor on American and European feature films for the past fourteen years, providing an invaluable education on the road to becoming a filmmaker. His varied filmography includes work done at the studio and independent level.

He has assisted Madonna on “W.E.“, “The MDNA Tour“, and “Secret Project“, Robert Benton on “The Human Stain“, Rebecca Miller on “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee“, and Milcho Manchevski on “Senki“.

As a filmmaker, Senzatimore has seen success with numerous short films. “We Follow The Rules“, concerning the treatment of an ostracized police officer following a fatal shooting, was screened at the Orlando Film Festival in 2010. A story of two lovers separated by many years, “Isabella“, won the Best Short Film – 16mm award at the 2004 Long Island International Film Expo. In 2012, he served as a cinematographer on “Best Friend / Interlude“, a back screen projection video which was seen internationally as part of Madonna’s MDNA Tour.

His latest project is “Pastor Paul“, a 35mm black and white drama, due for release in 2014.

www.fearlessfilms.info

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side, against myself I’ll fight,
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted;
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too;
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
     Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
     That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.

Analysis

In Sonnet 88, the poet undertakes to defend the beloved when, in time, they themselves will be cast aside and denigrated as an object unworthy of love.

Billy tells his beloved that when they criticize him, he will agree, and support their opinion as virtue, even though it is a betrayal. He does this because he knows his own faults, and is so convincing when he describes them, that his lover will be vindicated. By this note, he can consider himself a winner, because his love for this person is such that any gain to them is a gain twofold or him. He cares so much that to help this person whom he loves, he will harm himself.

Will’s Wordplay

The key to a full understanding this sonnet is found in the words “gainer” and “vantage”. The speaker envisages an inevitable (i.e. “When”), vigorous and adversarial incident between the sonnet’s “I” and the addressee, “thou”. This conflict is established by the words “scorn”, “side”, “fight”, “losing”, “win”, “gainer”, “vantage” and “double-vantage”.

Moses Statue, Court House, Grand Concourse

The Bronx County Courthouse, also known as the Mario Merola Building, is a historic courthouse building located in the Bronx in New York City. It was designed in 1931 and built between 1931 and 1934. It is a nine story limestone building on a rusticated granite base in the Art Deco style. It has four identical sides, an interior court, and a frieze designed by noted sculptor Charles Keck. The sculptures on the 161st Street side are by noted sculptor George Holburn Snowden. Two sculptural groups on the Walton Avenue side are by noted sculptor Joseph Kiselewski. The Bronx Museum of the Arts was once located on the main floor.

ACTOR – Joe Bowen

Joseph Bowen is a New York City-based actor. His New York credits include work with Project Shaw (The Devil’s Disciple), Astoria Performing Arts Center (Merrily We Roll Along), and the Duke Theater on 42nd Street (All for Joe). Chicago credits include the Ravinia Festival (Sunday in the Park with George), Royal George Theatre (Leaving Iowa), and 10 years as a company member of ShawChicago. He has worked at regional theaters such as PlayMakers Repertory Company (Richard II, Cyrano de Bergerac), New Harmony Theatre (The Crucible, All’s Well that Ends Well, She Stoops to Conquer and others), Mill Mountain Theater (Great Expectations), Manchester NH’s Palace Theatre (The Boys Next Door) and Meadow Brook Theater (A Christmas Carol). Film: Carnal, Gless, Freudian Slip, Ten and The Age of Fiction.
Website: http://josephbowen.biz

FEATURING – Joyce Fideor

A multi-faceted actress for stage, television and film, Joyce received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and has studied under such notable thespians as Robert Lewis, Alvin Epstein, and Lee Bruer.

Joyce’s Broadway debut was as Lady Macduff in Nicol Williamson’s direction of Macbeth. Regional theatre credits include, Blanche in Streetcar (dir. Steven Hollis), Nora in A Doll’s House (dir. Steve Stettler), and Lady Anne in Richard III (dir. John Dillon).

She has workshopped scripts by Wendy Wasserstein and Christopher Durang, among others, and has been in several world premieres, including Sam Shepard’s Suicide in B-Flat at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

In addition to acting, Joyce has formal training in movement, voice, singing, stage combat, and mime. She has appeared on stage at The Public Theater, Circle in the Square, Yale Rep, and Dallas New Arts Theatre, to name a few.

Currently, Joyce is an actress for The Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Workshop, where she continues to appear in new works by New York’s finest up and coming playwrights.

DIRECTOR – Stephanie Gardner

Stephanie Gardner is an Emmaus, PA and NYC based writer/director for film and theatre. Past clients include Ellie Wiesel, Yale University, Urban Stages, and Miller Symphony Hall. Her most recent film, “If I Had A Piano (I’d Play You The Blues)” has won Best of Show at the Greater Lehigh Valley Filmmakers Festival, and an Award of Merit: Special Mention through the Accolade Global Film Competition. Additionally, “If I Had A Piano” is an Official Selection of New York No Limits 2015 Film Summit, NewFilmmakers NY, and the European Film Festival.

Stephanie has written and directed over 14 short films, including Sonnet 151 for the New York Shakespeare Exchange The Sonnet Project. Her film “And If I Stay,” played NewFilmmakers NY at the historic Anthology Film Archives, and was selected by the International Festival of Cinematic Arts LA. “Love Yourself” by Tha Gecko Brothers, a music video she directed which speaks out against domestic violence, played at this year’s Harlem International Film Festival.

Stephanie received an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Asia where she participated in masterclasses and screenwriting workshops under the tutelage of Oliver Stone (“Platoon“), Todd Solondz (“Happiness“), Richard Wesley (“Uptown Saturday Night“), and Sabrina Dhawan (“Monsoon Wedding“).

To learn more about Stephanie as a writer and director or to view samples of her work, please visit www.thestephaniegardner.com

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY – Shivani Khattar

Shivani Khattar began to develop her foundation as a visual storyteller in theatre; winning several accolades in India for her work as a theatre actor and director. She received training under some of the greatest theatre legends in India including the late Shri Habib Tanvir. She then moved into film and video working as a freelance cinematographer and editor for documentaries, TV pilots and radio news features. She worked as an Assistant Producer at Spot Films, New Delhi an independent TV/ News Features Agency and worked for about a year in Northeast-India at the height of its militant insurgency; on a media project for DFID and Internews Europe to promote human rights awareness on issues involving the People living with HIV/AIDS in the region. She got her Masters of Arts degree in Filmmaking from NYU’s Tisch School of Arts Asia where she received the NYU Graduate production award for her thesis film ‘Noor’ as well as the Paulette Godard Scholarship two years in a row. During her time at NYU she shot over ten short films, narrative and documentaries that have been screened at international film festivals including Palm Springs International Film Festival, South by Southwest, Salt Lake City International Film Festival and Clermont Ferrand. She is one of the founders of ‘Films for People’, a film company involved in the production of socially relevant films in South-East Asia. In addition she is also involved in shooting an independent documentary feature about the sex industry of Cambodia titled ‘Night Mothers’ in addition to developing a feature script that was shortlisted for the Cannes Residence du Festival in 2012.

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured;
     But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
     Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

Analysis

Sonnet 118 contemplates being sick of the happiness you’re used to, but more miserable in the alternative.

Will compares various kinds of purging in this sonnet– tasting different foods to cleanse the palate, inducing vomiting to cleanse the gut of food poisoning, and he himself switching to a diet of bitterness after being so cloyed by his lover’s sickening sweetness. Tired of being in such a healthy relationship, he sought out tainted people to keep company with, and became accustomed to the foul medicine of infidelity he had used as a preventative measure. But you cannot “cure” good with evil, and though he was sick of his happy relationship, he is truly poisoned by the drug of infidelity.
 

Will’s Wordplay

“Eager” here refers not to a desire to eat but to the flavor of vinegar and other pungent tastes.

“Compounds” suggests medicines, and perhaps the imagery is that of medicinal cures for loss of appetite. Will was afraid he would lose interest in his beloved and so sought other tasty morsels. Variety would spice things up! Not so much…

Bartow-Pell Mansion Gardens, The Bronx

Many public spaces in New York are named for the wealthy colonists who lived near there. This cite is the estate of some neighbors of Jonas Bronk, for whom the borough it calls home is named! The Bartow-Pell Mansion is located in northern portion of Pelham Bay Park in The Bronx. Originally the Robert and Marie Lorillard Bartow House, the residence and estate date back to 1654. The Lords of the Manor of Pelham once owned the home which was later enlarged, renovated and remodeled in the Federal style. The current house was built between 1836 and 1842. Ownership of the house passed between the Bartow and Pell families until it was finally sold to the City of New York in 1888 by descendants of the Bartow family. [1]

The mansion remained unused and empty for years before being leased by the City of New York to Mrs. Charles Frederick Hoffman, Jr. in 1914 to house the International Garden Club, Inc., an organization she had founded to promote formal gardens. The club has since extended its purpose to include the preservation and restoration of the home. [2] The exterior of the mansion was restored and the formal gardens were constructed from 1914 to 1917.[3] In 1936, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia used the mansion as his summer residence while nearby Orchard Beach was built. The interior of the mansion, furnished with period antiques, reopened to the public as a museum in 1946. The property also includes the Pell family burial plot.

The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978. The mansion and a carriage house are included. Since 2008, Adventures in Preservation has been helping to preserve Bartow-Pell Mansion, a project that has been partly funded by a grant from the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund for Historic Interiors of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. [4]
 

About the Museum

“As the last remaining ‘great country estate’ in the Bronx Pelham Bay Park, Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum’s mission is to create a vibrant site through the preservation, restoration and interpretation of the property and grounds for the benefit of the public throughout the New York City metro region and beyond. Our mission is achieved by: protecting, preserving and restoring the site’s architecture, landscape and collection; interpreting the site’s history in compelling and innovative ways; and creating dynamic education programs for schools, adults and families.” [5]

References

1. Chronological history of Bartow-Pell Mansion

2. About Mrs Charles Frederick Hoffman

3. “GARDEN CLUB ENJOINS CITY”, “New York Times”, July 9, 1918, Page 24

4. Adventures in Preservation – Shutter Shop on Shore Road

5. http://www.bartowpellmansionmuseum.org/about/mission.php

ACTOR – Josh Jeffers

Josh is honored to be a part of the New York Shakespeare Exchange’s Sonnet Project. Josh has previously been seen in their production of King John and is currently working on this falls mainstage production of Othello.

DIRECTOR – Zhenjie Dong

Zhenjie Dong is a Chinese born and New York based artist, exploring ways to express her social and political concerns through art. She spoke at TEDxCreative Coast 2012 about her work Recreating Myth and the philosophy behind it. Her works have been exhibited around the U.S. including the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Atlanta Photography Group Gallery and La Galerie Bleue in Savannah, Georgia. Her video work Illness has been shown at Lumen Prize moving Image Art Festival in Hong Kong. Her work is part of the global tour of the Lumen Prize Exhibition, travelling around the world in United Kingdom, Latvia, China and Wales.

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you’ve passed a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
     But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
     Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

Analysis

In Sonnet 120, the poet has been unkind to his beloved, but no more unkind than they once were to him.

Will tells his lover how helpful their past unkindness to him is now. Because of the sorrow that they made him feel then, he is not weighted down with guilt over how he hurt them. Feeling his unkindness the way he felt theirs must have been like enduring a time in hell. He has acted like a cruel tyrant, never taking the time to think about how he once suffered when the same way. Willy regrets that he did not remember how hard true sorrow hits, or he would have apologized much faster– as fast as they apologized to him! But the good news is, now they are even. One offense cancels out the other.

Will’s Wordplay

This sonnet is an example of apologia, a form of rhetoric where the orator defends their actions against an accusation, to earn vindication and regain acceptance. Apologia implies not admission of guilt or regret but a desire to make clear the grounds for some course, belief, or position. #sorrynotsorry

Tortoise and Hare Bench, Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx

“’Slow and steady wins the race,’ is inscribed in the Tortoise & Hare sculpture, which serves as a popular meeting place for runners before and after cross country races in Van Cortlandt Park.

Designed by Michael Browne in collaboration with fabricator Stuart Smith, Tortoise & Hare celebrates Aesop’s fable of the same name by bringing to life the race between the mild–mannered reptilian and the overconfident and fleet–footed rabbit. Here the two are virtually neck–and–neck and seem to be striving towards the finish line. The work, which sits on a stone pedestal, lies just outside the finish line of the Van Cortlandt Park cross country track, one of the best known in the country. The Tortoise & Hare was created as part of a 1997 capital project upgrading the track, which incorporates this Aesopian theme throughout.” [1]

References

1. http://www.vcpark.org/the-park/features/16-monuments/56-tortoise-hare-statue.html

ACTOR – Ted Schneider

Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice (Theater for A New Audience), Twelfth Night (Sonnet Repertory Theater), Hamlet (Aspen Music Festival).
Other Theater Includes: You Got Older (Page 73), The International (Origin), Three Sisters (Chautauqua Theater Company), Now That’s What I Call A Storm (Edge Theater Company), Birdy (Women’s Project), Ghosts (Classic Stage Company).
Site Specific Theater: Balm in Gilead (Balm in Gilead-Brooklyn) The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Platanov, Ivanov (Lake Lucille Chekhov).
Film Directing/Editing: “Nothing Happened-a short film“(Post Production), “Alan“, a feature documentary (Production), “Untitled“, a short Production) “Itch“, a short (in development).
He has a BFA from UNCSA.

DIRECTOR – Stephanie Franz

Stephanie’s love of storytelling has led to writing, directing, acting, editing, producing, etc. She spent a number of years in the theater before moving into animation. She received her MS in Digital Imaging and Design from NYU in 2010. Her thesis project, the animated short Fluffle, won Best Animation at the Action on Film International Film Festival and Best Animation, First Prize at the Rhode Island International Film Festival (www.flufflethemovie.com). More recently she’s been focusing on live action projects, but you never know when she’ll dip back into theater, animation or an entirely new medium.
Follow her on Twitter/Instagram: @step2franz

So now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind;
He learned but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that put’st forth all to use,
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
     Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
     He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Analysis

Sonnet 134 reflects on the situation that the poet and his friend find themselves in due to the entanglement with a dark lover, who it appears has infatuated both of them.

Bill has admitted that his lover is also keeping company with his friend, and that nonetheless he remains with her. Both of them are at her mercy, and Bill wishes that she would release his friend so he could have a shoulder to cry on. But he knows it will remain as it is because the lady is greedy and the friend naive. She uses her beauty like a weapon against everyone she meets, and that is how she claimed his friend who only wanted to free Bill from her clutches. Now Bill has lost his friend, she has gained another source of admiration, and Bill is still a prisoner.

Will’s Wordplay

A noticeable feature of the sonnet is the plethora of legal and financial metaphors, which combine to suggest that love is a mercenary and sordid transaction which binds the participants into a kind of slavery or indentured servitude. “Payment” and “freedom” are major themes.

Under Bruckner Expressway, the Bronx

The Bruckner Expressway is a freeway in The Bronx. It carries Interstate 278 (I-278) and I-95 (and formerly I-878) from the Triborough Bridge to the south end of the New England Thruway at the Pelham Parkway interchange. The highway follows a mostly northeast–southwest alignment through the southern portion of the borough, loosely paralleling the course of the East River. It connects to several major freeways, including the Bronx River Parkway, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and the Hutchinson River Parkway.

Exit 50 lets you off at The Hunts Point Cooperative Market, a wholesale food market located on 60 acres in South Bronx. It is the largest food distribution center in the world. Located at the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, which houses the Fulton Fish Market, a produce market and a meat market, the Hunts Point Cooperative Market is the source for approximately 60 percent of New York City’s produce. Built in 1972 as a 40-acre facility with six buildings, the Market now consists of seven large refrigerated/freezer buildings on 60 acres, with a total refrigerated space of approximately 700,000 square feet and is governed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The Bruckner Expressway was a project envisioned by developer Robert Moses, who steered the Bruckner through the Soundview section of the Bronx, further decimating the neighborhood Moses had uprooted with his 15-year construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was completed in 1963. The Bruckner Expressway opened in 1973, making it one of the last roads of the New York City Expressway system to be built. It is named in honor of former Bronx Borough President and Congressman, Henry Bruckner (1871–1942), and was built on and over the roadway of Bruckner Boulevard.

Unlike the Cross Bronx Expressway, which cut through the existing street grid, the Bruckner Expressway was built along the Bruckner Boulevard alignment (except at its western end, where the Bruckner Expressway and Major Deegan Expressway meet). Between the Sheridan Expressway and the eastern end of the Bruckner Expressway, the Bruckner Boulevard is the service road, except at the I-95/278/295/678 junction, where Bruckner Boulevard passes underneath the flying junction. West of the Sheridan Expressway, Bruckner Boulevard is underneath the expressway, and extends past the expressway’s western terminus for about .5 miles, ending at the Third Avenue Bridge.

ACTOR – Christiane Seidel

Christiane Seidel is an American film, television, and theater actress, born in Wichita Falls, Texas, to a Danish mother and German father who served as a NATO fighter pilot and instructor.

Christiane’s childhood was spent traveling between three countries where acting followed as a passion from an early age. Although she graduated with a university degree in Marketing Communications, a semester abroad at a film school in South Africa was the tipping point for her love of acting.

Christiane then attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York and was recognized for roles in independent theatre and award-winning short films that soon led to her television debut as a Guest Star on NBC Universal’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, 12th Season Premiere.

Christiane landed her second television role recurring as Sigrid, wife to rogue FBI agent, Nelson Van Alden, portrayed by Academy® Nominated Actor, Michael Shannon, in HBO’s award-winning series, Boardwalk Empire.

http://ChristianeSeidel.com

DIRECTOR – Eddie Shieh

Edward Shieh is a New York based advertising creative by day, and filmmaker at night as a writer, director, and sometimes producer.

His recent film, Tu & Eu (You & Me)(2010), is a 10x Finalist garnering awards for Best Direction and Best Ensemble Cast, and numerous nominations for Best Film, Best Actress, Best Actor, and Best Music, at Academy® Qualifying and international festivals. Eddie’s writing-directorial debut film, No Menus Please (2006), won the PBS Reel 13 Shorts Festival and the Golden Gate International Grand Jury Award for Best Direction, including several accolades for his other films. All completed works are distributed to network, cable, and online. Eddie’s first dramatic feature script sold in 2010 and he is a proud screenwriter of the Writer’s Guild of America & WGA Digital Caucus.

Eddie’s passion for filmmaking stems from a career creating award-winning advertising campaigns and content for worldwide brands such as IBM, GAP, P&G, Heineken, Pepsi, as well as Connecticut State under then-Governor M. Jodi Rells.

In 2007, Eddie founded the Red Rope® Screening and Red Rope® Playhouse, sponsored events that present prestigious international films and theater works to professional and creative networks. In 2008, the Red Rope® Playhouse featured short plays titled, Ex-Lovers, by Israel Horowitz and his NY Playwrights Lab, and selected as a top 40 event at #25 by New York Magazine.

Eddie is native New Yorker and currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife who is a film, television, and theatre actress.

http://EddieShieh.com

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost:
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
     For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured eye,
     To swear against the truth so foul a lie!
 
Analysis
In Sonnet 152, the poet tells his mistress how he judges her, but then he realizes that he as well has been sinful.

Bill admits right off that loving the lady is wrong because it means he must break a vow. But if he is wrong then his mistress is doubly, by breaking a vow of love both to her husband and to him, her new lover, in swearing him off. But two broken promises are nothing compared to Bill’s trespasses. He has sworn great oaths about her kindness, love, faithfulness, constancy. But to do so he had to turn a blind eye to the truth. His eye is the biggest liar of all, seeing her as so beautiful, when her actions have so little beauty.
 
Will’s Wordplay
The language of this sonnet, more than any other, leans heavily on the language of the law courts:sworn is used 4 times; swear 3 times; oaths 4 times; vow twice; perjured twice; truth twice; as well as honest and constancy. Thats a lot of legalese for one little package of poetry.

230th Street Stairway, The Bronx

Step Streets are streets scattered throughout NYC composed entirely of steps, and steep ones at that. As a rule they were placed on hills that were too steep to build a road, yet in a rare concession to pedestrians, it was determined to allow them access to the streets denied to motor transportation. Many of these step streets are found in upper Manhattan and the Bronx, as well as northeast Staten Island, the hilliest areas of New York City. There are also a few scattered in Bay Ridge and Highland Park sections of Brooklyn.

The longest step street in the Bronx is West 230th, in the Spuyten Duyvil area.Starting at Irwin and Riverdale Avenues, it goes up past Johnson Avenue, Edgehill Avenue, and finally reaches its destination at Netherland Avenue. Commuters can access the West 231st Street IRT from the apartment buildings along Henry Hudson Parkway. In the early 2000s the steps were repaved and renovated. [1]
 
Sonnet Project
The 230th Street Stairway was the featured location for Sonnet 152, performed by Zoë Frazer, directed by David Ketterer. The video was released on May 23, 2013.
 
References
1. http://forgotten-ny.com/1999/06/step-streets-rare-streets-devoted-only-to-the-access-of-pedestrians-in-the-bronx/

ACTOR – Zoë Frazer
Zoë Frazer (AEA, SAG-AFTRA) is excited to be a part of The Sonnet Project with New York Shakespeare Exchange. Zoë holds an MFA in Acting from the Actors Studio Drama School. Some of her NYC Theatre & Film credits include: Broken (release August 2013-ElephantBox, Inc.) Alice in Wonderland (The New Acting Company), The Tragedy of Macbeth Part II (Cherry Lane Theatre), Bastard of Orleans or Looking for Joan (DoubleDutch Productions), and The Island of Dr. Moreau (Piper Theatre which is heading to the Edinburgh Fringe 2013). Zoë is a founding member of the Third Encore Company, a Resident Artist with The CRY HAVOC Company and an Only Make Believe company member.

DAVID KETTERER – Director
David T. Ketterer lives and makes movies in New York. His latest short film “Game Night” has screened in festivals across the country and will make its next appearance at the Manhattan Film Festival in June. His other work has screened all over the globe, from California to Iowa to Pakistan. He has broken two bones in his life, but unfortunately not while he was doing anything cool.