An excuse to raise a glass

As if you needed a reason to drink, the Bard's 450th birthday is being toasted all around town.

The New York Shakespeare Exchange (NYSX) originated the beer and performance festivities, aka ShakesBEER, along with The Sonnet Project, as a way to infuse our culture with the classical. They want to bring Shakespeare alive to a modern audience.  

ShakesBEER is a three hour pub crawl, with scenes from the Shakespearean repertoire breaking out at each location. October's ShakesBEER features scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream; Henry IV, Part 2; Romeo & Juliet; and Twelfth Night. The featured actors, who will be cheek by jowl with you, include Harry Barandes, Chris Corporandy, Phil Mutz, Sarah Nedwek, Katherine Puma, Colin Ryan, and Katelin Wilcox.

There are so many things you could debate after enjoying your ShakesBEER outing: Was William Shakespeare the Neil Simon, Arthur Kopit, Arthur Laurents, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller rolled into one of his generation? Has any contemporary playwright come along to rival his efficacy in conveying the human condition? Did Marlowe write Shakespeare? Why isn't Tamberlaine performed more often? Is Lear or Hamlet WS's most iconic hero? Are his comedies funnier than The Big Bang Theory?

Book in advance for ShakesBEER. A schedule of the October outings can be found here: http://shakespeareexchange.org/content/shakesbeer-2014.