Rodger Barton
Climbing - my health insurance.I wanted to help young people love Shakespeare as much as I do. To do that, they had to speak him out loud. To enjoy speaking him aloud they needed cut scripts. I formatted and noted them to finish the job. It took two years to do 12 plays. While creating them I read them, and re-read them, and re-read them some more, with Keith Knight. They were only finished when we agreed that they made complete sense and sounded right!

My relationship with Shakespeare started with my  Aunt Bernice drilling me on the Histories and the Kings and Queens of England. The University of British Columbia, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and 7 seasons with the Ontario Stratford Festival, especially the 5 productions starring Maggie Smith and the King Lear starring Peter Ustinov, grew my love of the Bard. Teaching monologues to hundreds of young professionals and directing scenes in theatre schools and universities deeply familiarized me with loved passages. Visiting hundreds of high schools with my show and workshops, paid a ot of bills and was always fulfilling.Twenty-five years of conversations with Keith and countless visits to the theatre nourished me. I would like to live long and well enough to play a decent Lear, someday.   

Shakespeare is endlessly fascinating to me because he searches for all sides to an argument. He doesn’t want us to find easy answers; he wants us to wrestle with the complexity of life, and then die, preferrably, when we are ripe. 
He also wants us to be good actors!
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