My love is deep.

The more I give to thee, the more I have,

for both are infinite."

When we made Shakespeare in Love,

an entertaining and fictional look

at William Shakespeare's life,

myself and the entire cast learned a great deal

about William Shakespeare

and the magical passionate world in which he lived.

We are very pleased to have the opportunity

to bring this world into your classroom.

We're going to take a look

at the playwright's life and his works,

and also attempt to unlock

the emotional power in Shakespeare's words.

By using examples

from his classic play Romeo and Juliet,

we'll try to show you

just how forcefully they speak to us today.

But the first question we need to ask

before we embark on our journey

is why Shakespeare?

Why out of those thousands upon thousands of writers

that have come and gone over the past 400 years

does Shakespeare continue to be performed

in every corner of the world?

Why are we still so fascinated by these plays

that were written so long ago?

The most likely reason is probably that Shakespeare,

better than any writer before or since,

understood exactly what makes people tick.

And he was able to transform that understanding

into the most powerful portrayals

of human relationships ever written.

But what do we really know about Shakespeare, the man?

Surely with all those great plays

and over 4 centuries of scholarly research,

there must be enough biographical material

to fill a library, right?

Wrong.

Believe it or not, every fact we know for sure

about the life of Shakespeare

can fit on a tiny piece of paper.

Fact 1.

He was christened in Stratford-upon-Avon

on April 26, 1564.

Actually we're not even sure of the day of his birth.

It's traditionally given as April 23rd,

but that may be because he died on that date.

Fact 2.

On November 27, 1582, when he was 18,

a license was issued for his marriage to Ann Hathaway.

Fact number 3.

May 26, 1583, their daughter Susanna was christened.

Two years later on February 2, 1585,

we have a record of the christening

of two more children, twins named Judith and Hamnet.

Fact number 4.

1592, Shakespeare's name first appeared in print

in an attack by a fellow writer named Robert Greene,

who called Will an upstart crow

for presuming to write as well as a university educated man.

And fact number 5,

the final fact we know for sure

about the life of William Shakespeare

is that on April 23, 1616 he died in Stratford-upon-Avon,

and was buried in the same church where he was born.

That's it.

Isn't that incredible that so little is known

about the world's greatest playwright?

But, of course, we know much more about Shakespeare

than any biography could ever tell us

because we have the wonderful plays and poems he left us.

And through them we can enter his imagination.

And what an imagination it is.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks.

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

who is already sick and pale with grief,

that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she."

Never has there been

an imagination so rich or so inclusive.

It's easy to forget that Shakespeare, in his time,

was a very popular playwright,

who wrote for and about people at all levels of society.

And in every period since then,

his universal understanding of the human condition

has made his work seem contemporary.

And why not?

When the subjects he wrote about

are the stuff of today's headlines--

power, war, violence, and passion.

In Hamlet you have the ultimate dysfunctional family.

In Macbeth you have the very extreme of political ambition.

And in Romeo and Juliet

you have the world's greatest story of young love.

That's why it's nothing short of a Shakespearian tragedy

that this great playwright is so often thought of as boring,

incomprehensible and inaccessible,

a dusty icon on a museum shelf.

In one sense, Shakespeare was just like the rest of us.

And there must have been a time in his youth

when nobody knew he was a genius.

That concept was the inspiration

for the film Shakespeare in Love.

We imagined Will as a struggling young actor,

and we tried to have some fun with what might have been

the sources of his inspiration.

Now it's comedy they want.

Will, comedy, like Romeo and Ethel.

Who wrote that?

Nobody. You were writing it for me.

I gave you £3 a month since.

Half of what you owe me.

I'm still due for One Gentlemen of Verona.

Will, what is money to you and me?

I, your patron, you, my wordwright.

When the plague lifts, Burbage will have a new play

by Christopher Marlowe for the Curtain.

I will have nothing for the Rose.

Mr. Henslowe, will you lend me £50?

Fifty pounds? What for?

Burbage offers me a partnership

in the Chamberlain's Men for £50.

My days as a hired player are over.

Oh, cut out my heart.

Throw my liver to the dogs.

No then?

( indistinct shouting )

The London of 1593 was a world of dramatic contrasts,

a town of great palaces and dark hidden alleyways,

of stately manor houses and raucous taverns.

It was a world where violence could flare

at the slightest provocation,

and where the Black Death could strike down anyone,

rich or poor, at any moment.

What have I done, Mr. Fennyman?

The theaters have all been closed down by the plague.

Oh, that.

By order of the Master of the Revels.

Mr. Fennyman,

allow me to explain about the theater business.

The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles

on the road to imminent disaster.

Nothing.

Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

How?

I don't know. It's a mystery.

It was also a romantic world of poetry,

passion and the theater.

Playgoing was the great common denominator

in this unruly society,

a place where all were welcome

and everyone became equal for a few hours.

Well, not quite equal.

The groundlings paid a penny

to stand in the open air in front of the stage

and the rest of the audience paid tuppence

for a seat under the roof.

And for another penny they could rent a cushion.

When I began to research Elizabethan England,

I saw that all the theaters of the time

were all more or less circular amphitheaters with many sides.

They were constructed mainly of wood

and generally had a large open area,

either paved or just bare earth in front of the stage,

which usually projected out in the audience area.

JOSEPH: Performances were held in the afternoon

for the simple reason that most of the lighting

had to be supplied by the sun.

Now you may be asking yourselves,

what happened to the groundlings

when it rained?

Well, they go wet, of course.

You