Buff of the Bard Head of Shakespeare Guild Has Devoted Life to Revered English Playwright by Gary Tischler Once, when he was young, John Andrews thought about being an architect. Andrews grew up in Carlsbad, N.M. ìNot exactly a hotbed of Shakespeareans,î Andrews said. Andrews ended up devoting his professional life, in many, many ways, to the life, times and works of William Shakespeare. Andrews is founder, creator and president of The Shakespeare Guild, a global non-profit corporation whose purpose is to widen the audience for the most revered poet, writer and playwright in the English language. In the field of Shakespeare, Andrews has marched all over the landscape as impresario, editor, scholar, administrator, historian and never-ending student. ìHe is a cultural phenomenon,î Andrews said of the Bard, ìplain and simple. There has never been anyone remotely like him.î Andrews is an imposing figureóerudite with the cool image of a scholaróbut when he talks about Shakespeare, when he gets down to the nitty gritty of words, characters, meanings, echoes and arcane bits of business, he is like an adm irer whose passion has never cooled. The Bard can get you that way. Shakespeareís life and works are Andrewsís lifeís work. That tide in the affairs of men occurred for Andrews when he was a student at Harvard and took a sophomore-year course in Renaissance literature from professor Sherman Hawkins. That got him into making English his major. While at Vanderbilt to earn a doctorate, he got a chance assignment working for Shakespeare Studies, an academic journal, and that got him to specialize in the Bard and also marked a cue for his future work. ìI donít think you can ever get to the end of Shakespeare. You could do this sort of thing for several lifetimes,î he said. When he moved to Washington, D.C., he ended up luckily enough at the Folger Shakespeare Library where he edited the Shakespeare Quarterly, oversaw the libraryís book-publishing efforts and headed the Folger Institute, an educational consortium for Renaissance studies. At the Folger, he immersed himself in his first effort to popularize Shakespeare and broaden the audience. Between 1979 and 1982, the Folger organized an exhibition and book called ìShakespeare: The Globe and the World,î which included all the available artifactsóbooks, costumes, folios, paintings and drawingsóas well as a section on how popular culture throughout history had embraced the Bard. The popular exhibition traveled throughout the country. In 1987, he created The Shakespeare Guild, which was meant to further broaden the audience. ìAt first, I kept getting sidetracked by other things,î Andrews said. That meant editingófrom 1988 to 1992óthe 19-volume annotated compilation, ìThe Guild Shakespeare,î which in turn led to the still ongoing creation of ìThe Everyman Shakespeare,î a much more complex paperback set. Widening the audience for the ìeverymanî meant getting renowned actors and theater professionals to write forewords, including John Gielgud, Zoe Caldwell, Julie Harris, F. Murray Abraham, Helen Hayes, Hal Holbrook, John Houseman, Jeremy Irons, Sir Derek Jacobi, Kevin Kline, Kelly McGillis, Christopher Plummer and Tony Randall, among others. Gielgud, the famed and legendary British actor who dueled on the London stages with Laurence Olivier in the 1930s with their versions of Romeos, would lend his name and his legend to one of the principal aspects of The Shakespeare Guild, the yearly awarding of the Golden Quill. Sir Ian McKellen was the first recipient of the Sir John Gielgud Award for Excellence in 1996, with the gala held fittingly in the Folger Shakespeare Library. McKellen was followed by Sir Derek Jacobi, the amazing Zoe Caldwell and Kenneth Branagh. ìThere is no doubt in my mind that Branagh did more than anyone to rescue Shakespeare from decline,î Andrews said. ìHis filmsóbeginning with ëHenry Ví and ëMuch Ado About Nothingíócreated a whole new audience for the plays without sacrificing meaning or quality.î The Guild does its bit, too, with the popular ìSpeaking of Shakespeareî series, held in a variety of venues, including the British Embassy, the National Press Club and, recently, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Here, audiences can hear talks, lectures and panel discussions with some eminent participants, including director Peter Brook, Shakespeare Theatre director Michael Kahn, playwright Ken Ludwig, Shakespearean actor and Star Trek commander Patrick Stewart, actor Hal Holbrook and Ted Van Gruythiesen. ìShakespeare is obviously best appreciated when performed,î Andrews said. ìBut when you read him, you must listen with an eager ear and an open mind to the words, you must hear them with an open mind.î When talking to Andrews about Shakespeare, itís a little like a Yankee fan talking about the merits of Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. He dismisses the authorship issue as ìsillyî and was not overly impressed with Harold Bloomís ponderous tome ìShakespeare.î He knows the words and delights in the double and sometimes triple meanings that are the spice, the meat, ingredients of Shakespeare. He can give a quick talk about the various ways of using choir or quired or quire in ìKing Learî or how the description of Brutus as ìthe noblest Roman of them allî is Shakespeareís way of being ironic, and if thatís not enough, you can get into a real discussion about how ìThe Tempestî might just be a broadside against imperialism because of the way Caliban and Ariel are treated. ìBeing in Washington, Shakespeare is very resonant. I wonder sometimes what Booth was thinking, waiting to kill Lincoln. He was in ëJulius Caesarí with his father,î he said. ìI like the Shakespearean women the most in some ways,î he said. ìRosalind especially, and Helena, theyíre so funny, so strong, so bright.î Andrews is married to Janet A. Denton, who is director of the American Arts Alliance. April 23 is, more or less, the accepted birthday for William Shakespeare. He will be 438 years old and still going strong. Gary Tischler is a contributing writer to The Washington Diplomat.