Dame Judi Dench and Shakespeare: Exits and Entrances
Posted on April 3, 2016 at 8:00 am
Is there a better combination than Dame Judi Dench and William Shakespeare? In honor of the 400th anniversary of the death of the greatest writer in the history of the English language, one of the premiere actresses of our time is releasing a new CD called Exits & Entrances: Celebration of Shakespeare
Dame Judi performs some of her favorite selections from the Bard’s works, including the classic “When in Disgrace With Fortune and Men’s Eyes” and “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds.” She is joined by David Suchet (best known in the US as Hercule Poirot), and Dench’s late brother Jeffery, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, well-known for his powerfully-intoned Shakespeare roles, who adds a contrastingly robust tone, and Oliver Dench, grandson of Jeffery, who recently did a one-man “Hamlet.” On the 24 tracks, the stars each perform well-known snippets from Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V, The Winter’s Tale, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III, and As You Like It, as well as sonnet selections.
in 1950. Two of Henry’s neighbors were the sisters Beezus and Ramona, who became the central characters in one of her most popular series. 
, with illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky. In 1975, Cleary won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association for “substantial and lasting contributions to children’s literature,” in April 2000 she was named Library of Congress Living Legend in the Writers and Artists category for her contributions to the cultural heritage of the United States, in 2003 she received the National Medal of Arts, and in 2008 the elementary school she attended was renamed in her honor.
, but all of them are wonderful. Oh, and if you are an adult who loved her books as a child, you will enjoy her memoir of her own childhood in Portland, Oregon, 
and the sequel, 
.
