"We are such stuff as dreams are made on..."

...says Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest. The Tempest is one of my all-time favorite Shakespearean plays. And I realized this weekend that I have a lot of favorites. As Bianca and I sat at the Bard's Inn breakfast table eating our egg-and-bacon-crescent blossoms and fruit medley, we overheard a family going around the table answering which is their all-time favorite play of Shakespeare's. I can honestly say I don't know which is my absolute favorite. Bianca said hers was Taming of the Shrew, which she got to know up-close-and-personal this year as she played Bianca in Westfield Elementary's sixth-grade rendition. And, of course, it's her name-sake. I love that one too. The Tempest is my Miranda's name-sake, so this one is particularly special to me. There's even a quote from the play etched into her headstone--"O, a cherubim, thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile infused with a fortitude from heaven." It brought tears to my eyes when I heard Prospero say the line at this year's annual mother-daughter trip to Cedar City.

Miranda and Ferdinand -- The Tempest

This year was the first time we spent two nights at the B&B and saw two plays, The Tempest and Love's Labour's Lost. I filled in the play-bill where it lists all the plays and you mark if you've seen it or not. (I didn't count community theatre productions, just professional.) I thought I had seen a lot of them, but I have a lot to go. I made Bianca promise me that we would always, always try to spend our weekend together at the Shakespeare Festival. She told me she would have to see if it would fit into her "tour schedule" as she has high hopes of becoming a professional violist someday. I smiled and told her, "We'll make it work."

Some years my friend Rachel and her son Conner come along, as they did this year. We did some "traditional" things, like Wingers (for some reason, we always eat there) and the Green Show. And of course, the plays, which were particularly interesting this year. I really liked both of them. We probably should have fit King John into the mix as well, as I hear it was fantastic, but I haven't even started on the Histories yet and am not sure how eager I am to tackle those. I'm not exactly a history person. Give me my tragedies and comedies for now.

Bianca and I took some early morning walks and we even checked out a house for sale down there--a cute little Tudor-style cottage. Now ideas of having a vacation rental that I can decorate all Shakespeare keep running through my head. I think it would be nice to have a place to stay down in a town that celebrates William Shakespeare. I'll have to think on this one...

I do love our time down in Cedar City. We need these mother-daughter bonding weekends. I realized that Portia will be the age next summer that Bianca was when we first started taking our trip to the Shakespeare Festival. She just seems so less ready. I might push it a little while with her. But the next time they do Merchant of Venice--Portia's namesake--I'll have no choice.