About the Schedule
[Click here to download the full schedule.] In 2020, an international group read the complete works of Shakespeare. (I personally read the Folger Shakespeare Library editions, which are also available free online.)
The schedule—created for 2020 but appropriate for any year—its delineations (comedy/tragedy/history/etc.), and the reading order are based on on The Riverside Shakespeare (Second Edition). Comedies, histories, tragedies, romances, and poems were interspersed throughout the year, but within each genre they appeared in the order of The Riverside Shakespeare. There are two exceptions:
- Twelfth Night appears first to coincide with the feast of twelfth night (January 5).
- The Merry Wives of Windsor is moved back to appear amid the Henry IV plays.
Through the year, the schedule features certain plays at opportune moments:
- As mentioned above, Twelfth Night is scheduled to coincide with twelfth night.
- The ides of March (March 15) will occur while we read Julius Caesar.
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream was scheduled during midsummer.
- St. Crispin’s Day (October 25) occurred while we read Henry V.
- A Winter’s Tale was scheduled at wintertime.
About Me
My name is Ian Doescher, and I’m the author of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, the Pop Shakespeare series, MacTrump, and other Shakespearean parodies.