After my week with the teachers in Athens, which I described in my previous post, I flew to Sicily to meet my family for a quick vacation. 

A meal, strangely enough, gave me a new insight into one of the two main characters in Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo."

The title of today's post comes from a famous 1994 book called "An Intimate History of Humanity," by the renowned English philosopher and sociologist Theodore Zeldin. The new forms of love he was referring to have to do with attitudes toward the education of children--about which I'll talk more.

Last fall, while listening to the car radio, I heard about an exciting video that had made its way to the home page of YouTube.  It featured an 18-year-old from Camden, standing in the middle of a deserted street corner performing a scene from Hamlet. 

I logged on, watched it, and was so impressed that we tracked the kid down and offered him a scholarship to our training program.  The only proviso was that he come in and audition.  He traveled to Manhattan a few weeks ago and gave one of the most astonishing auditions I have ever seen. 

Artistic Director, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

At the invitation of New Jersey Monthly, I am dipping my proverbial pen into the mysterious, inky universe of “blogging” — to my mind a most unfortunate verb, based on an equally unfortunate noun — and will attempt the role of Culture Blogger.

(My god, it sounds likes a deadly form of fungus that corrodes drains.)    

I suppose what qualifies me for such a task is that in my capacity as Artistic Director of The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, I dedicate my days and nights to the maintenance and enhancement of our cultural life. On tough days, this can be a desperate enterprise, but on good days there is nothing more thrilling.