"I admit that my own experience, as a minor poet, may have jaundiced my outlook; that I am used to having cosmic significances, which I never suspected, extracted from my work (such as it is) by enthusiastic persons at a distance; and to being informed that something which I meant seriously is vers de société; and to having my personal biography reconstructed from passages which I got out of books, or which I invented out of nothing because they sounded well; and to having my biography invariably ignored in what I did write from personal experience; so that in consequence I am inclined to believe that people are mistaken about Shakespeare just in proportion to the relative superiority of Shakespeare to myself."

T. S. Eliot

Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca

"And therefore sit you down in gentleness 
And take upon command what help we have
That to your wanting may be minister'd."
As You Like It

Almost 25 years ago, I adapted and directed a production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It at the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre. It became one of my most fulfilling and enjoyable theater experiences. Thank you to ASGT and the wonderful and talented cast, crew, and production staff who joined this journey to the forest of Arden.

I recently came across my notes for the script. It brought back so many great memories that I decided to publish this adaptation. 

As You Like It is in the public domain of course. This adaptation, set entirely in the forest of Arden and compressed from five acts to two, may be presented on the stage royalty-free (including the set design, prologue, and stage directions).

"Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

The seasons' difference, as the icy fang

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say

'This is no flattery: these are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.'

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

I would not change it."

William Shakespeare

As You Like It

There once was a playwright named Will

Whose spelling was practically Nil.

Whether Shaksper or Shakspere

Or Shakspe or Shakespeare,

Sweet Will paid his bill with a Quill.