A theater company in Bath, England, is auditioning dogs for a role in Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the Daily Telegraph is reporting.
The company says trained dogs were often used in plays during the Elizabethan era.
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That’s true. And just as men played all the human roles — including those of women — dogs played all the animal roles, including those of cats, bats, deer, horses, monkeys and kimodo dragons.
I played the dog role in a high school production of “The Taming of the Shrew.” I nailed it.
Apparently there were a lot of dog parts in Shakespeare’s plays. In “Hamlet,” the prince’s dog Horatio digs up a bone. The balcony scene in “Romeo and Juliet” was made for a dog to howl at the moon. And in “Macbeth,” there’s that scene where Lady Macbeth yells for Spot to get out. And Shakespeare mentioned “doggerel” a lot too. So there you go.
I wouldn’t have guessed Shakespeare was a dog person. I’d have thought he was into mice. Or flying squirrels.