Shakespeare's Birthday Celebrations 2026
www.shakespearescelebrations.com
The traditional Birthday Celebrations return to Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday 25 April 2026, extending a hand of cultural friendship to many national and international visitors who come to join in the festivities.
Apr 20, 1611: Earliest recorded performance of Macbeth occurs at the Globe. #OTD #Shakespeare
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A painting of sprite Puck, character of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, by Arthur Rackham (1910)
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
Midsummer Night’s Dream (5.1) #ShakespeareSunday
Macbeth by John Martin, oil on canvas (1820). Depiction of Macbeth and Banquo encountering the witches on the heath.
Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act.
Macbeth (1.3) #ShakespeareSunday
Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), Kenneth Branagh (All is Well), Colin Firth (Blackadder), and Paul Mescal (Hamnet).
We are convented
Upon a pleasing treaty and have hearts
Inclinable to honor and advance
The theme of our assembly.
Coriolanus (2.2) #ShakespeareSunday
Apr 18, 1593: Venus and Adonis is entered into the Stationer's Register in London. #OTD #Shakespeare
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Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” with Ora Jones, Jason Simon, Rohan Ryhs Degala and Issy van Randwyck/Photo: Kyle Flubacker
Shakespeare’s Raucous Farce Is Filled with Puns, Pratfalls and Pleasures | buff.ly/6Mr45RU
Shakespeare's London house was identified in a plan of the Blackfriars district from 1668. (The London Archives, City of London Corporation)
Shakespeare owned a house in London. We finally know where it was.
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A chance find in a London archive has allowed a researcher to pinpoint the exact location of William Shakespeare’s London home for the first time.
Apr 15, 1644: Allegedly, on this date, the Globe Theatre is destroyed to clear the site for tenement buildings. #OTD #Shakespeare
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Apr 15, 1367: King Henry IV of England is born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire. #OTD
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Anthony Sher (left) and Greg Doran in 2007. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Walking Shadow by Greg Doran review – Shakespeare’s healing power
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After the death of his husband, Antony Sher, the former RSC director embarks on a quest to see every First Folio.
View of Venus with the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades star cluster, just above it in the night sky.
The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.
King Lear (1.5) #ShakespeareSunday
Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Dukes navigates the Descartes Highlands.
The pale moon shines by night,
And when I wander here and there,
I then do most go right.
The Winter's Tale (4.3) #ShakespeareSunday
Illustration of the sun and moon in space with the Earth in the foreground.
His face was as the heavens, and therein stuck
A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted
The little O, the Earth.
Antony and Cleopatra (5.2) #ShakespeareSunday
Apr 12, 1533: On Easter Saturday, Anne Boleyn is publicly proclaimed queen of King Henry VIII in Greenwich. #OTD
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Portrait of Thomas Wyatt the Younger, the leader of the pack
Apr 11, 1554: Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger is beheaded and then his body quartered for treason for leading Wyatt's Rebellion against Queen Mary I. #OTD
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George Romney paints the infant Shakespeare
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The Folger #Shakespeare Library takes a closer look at George Romney's The Infant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the Passions (ca. 1791), one of the strangest paintings in its collection.
Portrait of Edward IV
Apr 9, 1483: King Edward IV of England dies at the age of 40 in Westminster. #OTD
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Apr 9, 1413: King Henry V of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey. #OTD
For those of us that wish we were on the far side of the moon, lol...
This weekend's #ShakespeareSunday theme is: ASTRONOMY!
2026 Illinois #Shakespeare Festival drops ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ and ‘Our Town’ buff.ly/JjAKeA3
Shakespeare sights, stories and secrets: 48 hours in Stratford-upon-Avon | www.factlondon.com/things-to-do...
Stop Saying Macbeth’s Downfall Was Ambition (It’s Not)
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Mr. Salles offers a new take on Macbeth's ultimate tragic flaw. #Shakespeare
What Hamnet owes to Virgil’s Georgics buff.ly/xHn2hMi
Cartoon illustration of an Easter Bunny with a basket of eggs.
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes.
King John (2.1) #ShakespeareSunday
Stipple engraving of Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing by A. Zaffonato (1795)
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried, but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.
Much Ado About Nothing (2.1) #ShakespeareSunday
Lithograph of Pericles, Act 3, scene 1 depicting the death of Thaisa in childbirth
Now mild may be thy life,
For a more blusterous birth had never babe.
Pericles (3.1) #ShakespeareSunday
Apr 4, 1579: Anne #Shakespeare, sixth child of John and Mary Shakespeare, is buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. #OTD
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Cover of Folk-lore of Shakespeare by T.F. Thiselton-Dyer (1884)
Folk-lore of Shakespeare
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Throwback Thursday presents this 1884 scholarly examination by T.F. Thiselton-Dyer that delves into the various elements of Elizabethan folklore such as fairies, witches, demons, and ghostly apparitions that appear in the works.
Portrait of Arthur, Prince of Wales.
Apr 2, 1502: Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King Henry VII, dies aged 15 at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. #OTD
