A Day in Stratford

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GEORGE:
Close your eyes and stand with me in Stratford-upon-Avon—an English market town of roughly fifteen hundred souls, ringed by fields, sheep, mud, and gossip.

No phones. No streetlights. No “I’ll do it tomorrow” the way we mean it.

And today, we’re not going to London. We’re not going to the Globe.
We’re going to spend one ordinary day in Stratford—
and watch how an ordinary day can build an extraordinary mind.

SFX: Footsteps on packed earth. A door opens.

GEORGE (calling):
Master Shakespeare! Are you awake?

MASTER SHAKESPEARE:
Awake? I have been up this hour and more. A house with many bodies does not sleep late—even when it wishes to.

GEORGE:
Set the scene for us. Where are we?

MASTER SHAKESPEARE:
Henley Street. My father’s house—our house—
and also his work. For the home and the shop are stitched together, like lining to leather.

GEORGE:
So you’re growing up… in a business.

MASTER SHAKESPEARE:
A trade, sir. Gloves, leatherwork—tanned hides, cutting, shaping, selling. And you learn early that a town is not made of poetry.
It is made of work.

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