Wednesday is widely known then, as Shakespeare Day, a day to celebrate the playwright's life and work.
In Chicago, the play "Bat-Hamlet" performs at 8 p.m., telling a Shakespeare-Dark Knight cross-tale at North Center's Conservatory theater. Or take the "450 is the New 30" quiz from the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.
In downstate Illinois, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival marks William Shakespeare's birthday at 3 p.m. at Illinois State University, outside the Center for the Performing Arts.
On Tuesday night, BritWeek kicked off in Los Angeles. It was something of a British invasion, as one spot in Los Angeles looked a bit more like London for a few hours, marking the start of the annual BritWeek.
BritWeek will be capped off with an all-star production, "BritWeek's Evening of Shakespeare, Music and Love," celebrating what would have been The Bard's 450th birthday.
"The thing about it being Shakespeare's birthday - and you asked me about ' Rosemary's Baby' and it might seem a fatuous comparison - is that great stories bear reimagining and reinterpreting," actor Jason Isaacs noted. "Shakespeare's plays - I'm not comparing Ira Levin and Shakespeare but nonetheless - Shakespeare's plays, you can watch again and again and again with different casts and at different times and with different directors. Why? Because they are a blueprint there for examining human behavior and how we all are with each other and our own foibles and all good writers bear re-examining, whether it's revisiting a book or recasting and redirecting a story on screen. Good writing will stand it."
Shakespeare contributed more than 1,700 new words to the English language, and phrases we use over and over again.
People all over the world have celebrated his birthday in creative ways, but if you want to surely impress your friends, family, and colleagues, Talk Like Shakespeare! Need to brush up on how to sound like the man himself? Check out these tips.You can also Rap Like Shakespeare
