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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity. I’m George Bartley.

For the next section of this podcast, I’m beginning a new series I’m calling Conversations with Shakespeare. And tonight's episode is called get here anyone who ever try to do the right thing Transition to Shakespeare.

I want to start with something simple—something honest.

I’m doing this now because I’m seventy-five years old, and I have finally stopped worrying about whether I’m doing Shakespeare the “right” way.

When you’re younger, you spend a surprising amount of energy trying to prove you belong in the room. You want to sound smart enough. You imagine that it is important to stay ahead of critics you will never even meet. You worry about being corrected. You worry about being dismissed.

At this age, I’m less interested in proving anything.

I’m more interested in telling the truth—about what Shakespeare has meant in my life, and why I think he can mean something in yours, even if you’ve never read a play, even if high school made you hate the whole idea, even if the word “Shakespeare” makes you feel like someone just assigned you a term paper and forgot to ask if you’re alive.

Because I’m going to argue something gently but firmly in this series:

Shakespeare does not belong only to scholars.
He does not belong only to actors.
He does not belong only to English teachers.

He belongs to anyone who has ever lived long enough to look back on a moment and think, If I could do that again, I might choose differently.

He belongs to anyone who has ever watched a family argument turn into something much bigger than it started as.
Anyone who has ever wanted something so badly they could taste it—only to realize the wanting itself was dangerous.
Anyone who has ever loved someone and thought, How did I get here?
Anyone who has ever tried to do the right thing—and somehow made it worse.

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