This. Is. Awesome. Personally, I find this to be huge news. Thanks Scott!

I can only hope this is the start of another Shakespeare trend.

Oh dear God, I hope not. There's nothing worse than bad Shakespeare.

My roommate did sound on it :) @ pliny -- Joss is a huge Shakespeare buff.

In my mind, Joss Whedon can do little wrong, and as he's an old Wykehamist, I trust him to do Shakespeare well. And I also love the recent version of The Tempest, with Helen Mirren. But it was the "trend" word that had me concerned. Maybe I'm just being snobby, but just because one loves Shakespeare, doesn't mean one should go anywhere near those plays. They're really difficult to do well, and easy to fuck up.. otoh, I saw Richard Harris do Lear in London, back in the day, and I only wish he'd had the chance to put that on film.

btw, it's awesome for your roommate to have gotten that gig.

Granted, trends result in a lot of gravel and little gold. But I'm willing to sift through.

Have you seen Slings & Arrows?

Tell me about it. I begged to be sound utility on it.

I concur with pliny's sentiment: Joss Whedon can do little wrong. And on a personal level, my youngest son (11) loved "Serenity" and has studied Shakespeare since he was 8, analyzing and performing in Macbeth, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Hamlet and currently Henry IV, Part 1, so this Whedon project is a match made in heaven.

Scott, I'm curious. In England, even though it's such a big part of the underlying culture, Shakespeare tends to get forced onto students. From the ages of 11 to 16, we do one play a year in English class. How was your son introduced, and did he take to it quickly? What does he like about the Bard?

Sorry, no.

Did he get the Miranda reference in Serenity?

Luke is home-schooled which has allowed him to do some amazing things educationally. For example, one year the curriculum was centered on Lord of the Rings. Everything from writing and literature to math and science was tied to LOTR. It helps that where we live (Chapel Hill) has more Ph.D.'s per capita than anywhere in the U.S. and those resources are available for families seeking alternate forms of education. For more background, you can read this post I wrote a few months back.

As a fellow home-schooler, that is awesome. Kudos to him.

Beautiful Whedon quote from IGN interview: "I think Shakespeare works when it's emotionally true. It can be done on a bare stage. Actually, we had a reading of Lear yesterday, at my house, sitting around out by the garden. So it's not heavy with production values. But I also think it can work completely gussied up, as long as everything is working towards emotional truth, what's going on. But sometimes great big elaborate sets and special effects can help with that. There's nothing wrong with lavish productions." Good stuff, and Whedon knows of making work emotionally true.