Shakespeare @ Loyola College - Blackfriars Stage Company

There's so much going on in Baltimore this week!

The Blackfriars Stage Company, the touring troupe for the Blackfriars Theater, located at the American Shaksepeare Center (Staunton, VA),  is coming to Loyola College's McManus Theater this week to perform three plays -- one each night on September 24, 25 and 26 -- as part of their 2008/2009 Stark Raving Sane Tour!

All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. in McManus Theater in the DeChiaro College Center.

There is no charge for admission and all shows are open to the public.

Wednesday, September 24: Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors”
Thursday, September 25: Shakespeare's "Hamlet”
Friday, September 26: Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”

This young, innovative acting company stages fast-paced shows that recreate for modern audiences Shakespeare’s plays and other classics while remaining true to the original texts. The productions include original music compositions, minimal stage props and costuming, attention to the complexities of Shakespeare’s language, lots of energy and audience interaction.

DeChiaro College Center is off of the east-west street just before the overpass just north of Coldspring Boulevard, east of Charles Street and West of Milbrook Road. It is between Maryland Hall & the Andrew White Student Center.

To read the Shakespeare plays on bartleby.com, click the links below:

• The Comedy of Errors


• Hamlet

Personally, my favorite Shakespeare play is Much Ado about Nothing though I admit I've only read or seen a few of his plays.

And to see when the Blackfriars will be in your city, click here!

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

I finished my first book about positive psychology - Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin E. P. Seligman - and am on to Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom.

I really enjoyed Authentic Happiness so I'm excited about The Happiness Hypothesis -- and yes I'm still currently also reading Carson McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; I'm just taking my time with it and reading other books at the same time.

Jonathan Haidt is a professor of Social Psychology at the University of Virginia who studies morality and emotion and how they vary across cultures. He is also a leader in positive psychology and studies positive emotions such as moral elevation, admiration, and awe.

From what I gather from reading the introduction, The Happiness Hypothesis is about ten Great Ideas that Haidt has come across in the works of ancient wisdom (Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, the sayings of Buddha, Analects of Confucius, the Tao te Ching, the Old and New Testaments, the Koran, etc.) and other works of philosophy and literature (Shakespeare for example). Each chapter attempts to savor one of these ten Great Ideas and to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives. This book gives advice on how to construct a life of virtue, happiness, fulfillment, and meaning.

Visit the author's website to read Chapter One (The Divided Self) and Chapter Four (The Faults of Others). Here are the other Chapter titles in case you’re curious:

Introduction: Too Much Wisdom

1 The Divided Self 1
2 Changing Your Mind 23
3 Reciprocity with a Vengeance 45
4 The Faults of Others 59
5 The Pursuit of Happiness 81
6 Love and Attachments 107
7 The Uses of Adversity 135
8 The Felicity of Virtue 155
9 Divinity With or Without God 181
10 Happiness Comes from Between 213
11 Conclusion: On Balance 241

Acknowledgments 245
Notes 247
References 265
Index 291

My favorite quotes from the Introduction are two from Shakespeare and Buddha with similar meanings.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. - Shakespeare

Our life is the creation of our mind. - Buddha