Othello

Othello by William Shakespeare

Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere?

In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished architect and writer Witold Rybczynski chronicles the history of the chair from the folding stools of pharaonic Egypt to the ubiquitous stackable monobloc chairs of today. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He reveals the history of chairs to be a social history--of different ways of sitting, of changing manners and attitudes, and of varying tastes. The history of chairs is the history of who we are. We learn how the ancient Chinese switched from sitting on the floor to sitting in a chair, and how the iconic chair of Middle America--the Barcalounger--traces its roots back to the Bauhaus. Rybczynski weaves a rich tapestry that draws on art and design history, personal experience, and historical accounts. And he pairs these stories with his own delightful hand-drawn illustrations: colonial rockers and English cabrioles, languorous chaise longues, and no-nonsense ergonomic task chairs--they're all here.

The famous Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner once remarked, A chair is only finished when someone sits in it. As Rybczynski tells it, the way we choose to sit and what we choose to sit on speak volumes about our values, our tastes, and the things we hold dear.

David Bevington is the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. A renowned text scholar, he has edited several Shakespeare editions including the Bantam Shakespeare in individual paperback volumes, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, (Longman, 2003), and Troilus and Cressida (Arden, 1998). He teaches courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance Drama, and Medieval Drama.

Barbara Gaines is the founder and Artistic Director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. She has directed over 25 productions at Chicago Shakespeare, and she serves on the artistic directorate of
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London as well as on Northwestern University's Board of Trustees.

Peter Holland is the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Notre Dame. One of the central figures in performance-oriented Shakespeare criticism, he has also edited many
Shakespeare plays, including A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Oxford Shakespeare series. He is also general editor of Shakespeare Survey and co-general editor (with Stanley Wells) of Oxford Shakespeare Topics.

Contributors:

Professor Douglas Lanier - Douglas Lanier is an Associate Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. His publications include Shakescorp Noir in Shakespeare Quarterly 53.2 (Summer 2002) and Nostalgia and Theatricality in Shakespeare the Movie II (eds. Richard Burt and Lynda Boose, Routledge, 2003), and the book, Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture (Oxford University Press, 2002).

Professor Jill Levenson - Jill L. Levenson is a Professor of English at Trinity College at the University of Toronto. She has written and edited numerous essays and books including Romeo and Juliet for the Manchester University Press's series Shakespeare in Performance (1987), Shakespeare and the Twentieth Century (with Jonathan Bate and Dieter Mehl), and the Oxford edition of Romeo and Juliet (2000). Currently she is writing a book on Shakespeare and modern drama for Shakespeare Topics, a series published by Oxford University Press.

Professor Lois Potter - Lois Potter is Ned B. Allen Professor of English at the University of Delaware. She has also taught in England, France, and Japan, attending and reviewing as many plays as possible. Her publications include the Arden edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen and Othello for the Manchester University Press's series Shakespeare in Performance.

Ms. Janet Suzman - Janet Suzman was trained at LAMDA and is an honorary associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her work there has included The Wars of the Roses, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labour's Lost, and The Merchant of Venice. She has been awarded numerous honorary degrees and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1971 for her performance in Nicholas and Alexandra. Her acclaimed 1990 direction of Othello in Johannesburg, South Africa is considered to be one of the most powerful productions of the play.

Mr. Andrew Wade - Andrew Wade was Head of Voice for the Royal Shakespeare Company, 1990 - 2003 and Voice Assistant Director from 1987-1990. During this time he worked on 170 productions and with more than 80 directors. Along with Cicely Berry, Andrew recorded Working Shakespeare, the DVD series on Voice and Shakespeare, and he was the verse consultant for the movie Shakespeare In Love. In 2000, he won a Bronze Award from the New York International Radio Festival for the series Lifespan, which he co-directed and devised. He works widely teaching, lecturing and coaching throughout the world.

Marie Macaisa is a lifelong fan of Shakespeare who has seen at least one theatrical production of nearly all his plays (she's waiting for Henry VIII). Her first career, lasting 20 years, was in high tech; she has a B.S. in Computer Science from MIT and a M.S. in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Pennsylvania. For the last two years, she has devoted herself to the Sourcebooks Shakespeare Experience.

Dominique Raccah is founder, president and publisher of Sourcebooks. Born in Paris, France, she has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in quantitative psychology from the University of Illinois. She also serves as series editor of Poetry Speaks and Poetry Speaks to Children.