Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest, most quoted and greatest play. It grapples with ghosts, regicide, revenge, suicide and the consequences of procrastination. It portrays corruption, power, friendship, love and death. It probes the lines between damnation and salvation; honor and disgrace; imagination and reality; free will and destiny. And unlike any other play, it contains Shakespeare's views on acting and the role of theater in politics.

Join Carl Steidtmann, Shakespeare scholar and leader of the library's Shakespeare Reading Group, for a virtual presentation and discussion on The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark before you head over to Strings Music Festival for the performance of Hotel Elsinore on October 20. Carl's talk will be live streamed via Zoom.

This community discussion is free!

About the play at Strings: Hotel Elsinore

Real-life family–Susanna Hamnett, Joshua MacGregor, and Lily MacGregor–play the bereaved family of the once-great actor, Henry Elder, who was billed to perform his career-defining solo Hamlet at the famous Elsinore Shakespeare Festival. But, as they discover, Henry Elder is determined not to let anything as inconvenient as death prevent him from being there. With Shakespeare’s Hamlet as the pivot around which the family’s story revolves, the play is by turns absurd and poignant.

Tickets start at $20 and are available now.

About the speaker: Carl Steidtmann

After spending 35 years as a professional economist, Carl Steidtmann retired to pursue his youthful passions of history and Shakespeare. After three pilgrimages to Stratford-on-Avon and five years participating in Sally Frostic’s annual Shakespeare reading group at the library, he took over the teaching of this discussion in 2019.