Category: to be or not to be

Jack Benny: King of Classic Comedy

Many of our country’s most beloved entertainers started out in vaudeville, a national network of theaters offering bills of miscellaneous acts: singers, dancers, comedians. For Americans, it was television before there was television. TV variety shows, in fact, with hosts like Ed Sullivan and Carol Burnett, were vaudeville’s final encore. Performers known for one skill…


Hamlet’s ‘To Be or Not to Be,’ Really

The “To be or not to be” speech from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is, unfortunately, the most famous speech in all Shakespeare’s works. I say “unfortunately” because it has become famous for several wrong reasons. People have thought of the speech as a passionate expression of intense emotion. It’s not. People have thought of it as indicating…