Charleston's Craik-Patton House will host an event Saturday commemorating the 400th anniversary of famous playwright William Shakespeare's death, featuring performances of two of his plays and discussion of Shakespeare's life and work.
Bob Harrison, a retired West Virginia teacher and past president of the West Virginia Reading Association, will discuss Shakespeare and will have an original page from the author's third folio, a collection of his works issued in 1663, on hand for visitors to examine. Harrison, who enrolled in the Teaching Shakespeare Institute in 1985, wrote his doctoral dissertation on teaching Shakespeare in the classroom.
Shakespeare, often called the greatest writer in the English language, penned nearly 40 plays and more than 150 sonnets and poems. His most famous works include the plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, a Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night.
In a few weeks, fans of Shakespeare will have the opportunity to see selections from Shakespeare's first folio - the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., will exhibit a first folio of Shakespeare's plays, published in 1623, in all 50 states. Beginning on May 9, the Oglebay Institute in Wheeling will host the exhibit in West Virginia.