In the Shadow of the Globe, a verse novel in ten acts of the lives and loves of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, was published in December 2003 by Lit Pot Press, Inc., “a non-profit small press dedicated to print books of the highest literary quality.”
While primarily a book of poetry, In the Shadow of the Globe is also a fusion of genre. Because there is a distinct story line, describing the imagined lives of actual people, it is historical fiction. As it is told in many voices, it can also be considered a piece of theater.
Michelle spent several years researching the actors of the Globe, and many of the events described in the book are based on the history of the theater. Yet this is primarily a series of intertwined stories of love and ambition in a kind of poetry-meets-Shakespeare in Love.
The publisher’s catalog states:
An astonishing narrative poem using the colorful and daring characters of the Globe Theatre during the life of Shakespeare to create the incredible voices of its actors, bit players, poets, stage managers and lovelorn ladies of his day. Shakespeare, his wife, his Dark Lady and his poor dead boy all spring from the pages with fact and fiction intertwined into a virtuoso book that will redefine the classroom’s experience of Elizabethan studies. A new and provocative approach to a beloved subject.
