Hamlet or Richard III? Romeo & Juliet or Henry V? In celebration of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s unprecedented five-play, six-week residency this summer at Lincoln Center Festival 2011 in Park Avenue Armory, The NYPL is forming a DREAM TEAM with Lincoln Center to announce Bard Madness, possibly the first Shakespeare tournament of its kind. Not unlike the brackets familiar to sports fans, Shakespeare fans can fill out a grid to determine Shakespeare’s greatest play – with prizes going to those players whose choices most closely line up with the winning brackets. Now until midnight on April 13, Shakespeare fans should visit Facebook.com/LCFestival or Facebook.com/Shuttlespeare to enter the competition. Visitors will be asked to fill out an online bracket, predicting the fates of 32 of Shakespeare’s plays – does The Taming of the Shrew beat A Winter’s Tale? Is it King Lear or Macbeth? – whittling the candidates down to one final play! The “games” will then take place between April 14 through April 23 with the matchups being determined by 60% public votes and 40% by a panel of Shakespeare experts. Let the games begin!
