‘As You Like It’ — ABOUT WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, in April, 1564. It is thought that Shakespeare was educated at the King's New School, where he studied Latin and the literature of Virgil, Ovid, and Plutarch. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582, and had three children: Susanna (1583), and twins Judith and Hamnet (1585). No one knows when Shakespeare actually moved to London, but it is thought to have been sometime before 1589 when his first plays, Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, and The Comedy of Errors, were the hits of the London season. Shakespeare was also an actor as well as a popular playwright.

In 1594, The Lord Chamberlain's Men was formed, and for the next ten years it was London's premier acting company. This was due, perhaps, to the brilliance of Shakespeare's writing. In 1603, with the succession of James I, Shakespeare's company was given the royal patent, which meant they won the King's approval as the best theatre company in London, and became known as the King's Men. Not only did the King's Men perform at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (of which he had been part owner since 1599) but they also gave performances at the court of the King.

The Globe Theater burned down in 1613, when a prop cannon exploded during the first-night performance of "The Life and Death of King Henry VIII", Shakespeare's collaboration with John Fletcher. The theater, made entirely from wood and thatching was extremely flammable and went up in flames very quickly. No one was reported injured or killed.

Shakespeare died in Stratford-on-Avon, his hometown, in March of 1616, after retiring from the London theater. He was survived by his two daughters, Judith and Susanna, to whom he left the bulk of his estate ( Hamnet died young in 1596), and his wife Anne, to whom he left only his bed.