The players are horrified, but little does everyone know that nothing will go as planned and in attempting to prove her worth, Bertie will discover some of what she’s always dreamed: who she is, who her mother is, and maybe even the name of her One True Love. Backed by a quartet of fairies–Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, and Peaseblossom–Bertie sets out to retell Shakespeare’s Hamlet, set this time in Egypt. Out? The Theatre is all she loves and the only place she wants to be. She’s been given a task of her own: prove her worth to the Theatre, or get out because she is full of mischief and trouble-making. Young Bertie has problems beyond the wants of the seductive Ariel. Ariel, a spirit of the air and Bertie’s One True Weakness, believes that when a player’s entrance page is taken from the book, the player may escape the Theatre he believes, too, Bertie has come to free them all. As the pages are bound into the book, so too are the players bound to the Theatre.

The Compleat Works of the Stage prevents this from being possible the old book contains every play ever written, and thus, the beginning of every player within the Theatre. So, too, do some of the players dream, of escaping the Theatre and exploring the world beyond. Bertie loves the Theatre and its players with all her heart it is all she has ever known, though as any young girl will, Bertie dreams. Within its walls, the players of every play ever written reside, and all seems happy, for these players were born to their parts and surely must love and appreciate them.

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,Īnd each particular hair to stand on end,īeatrice Shakespeare Smith doesn’t necessarily live within a prison-house, and yet neither does she often leave the Theatre which she calls home. Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev