Brush Up Your Shakespeare

As with just about everything written, you can pretty much boil all the words off by just admitting Shakespeare said it first and better.

So, there is from the acclaimed bard (if unhappy father) WS that,

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

and both "Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong" as well as "It is a wise father that knows his own child."

Up on the theatrical stage go men trying to work things out with their fathers or shake, rattle and roll their way into their childrens' hearts like the dancing dads of Norwich. Not that they don't take a chance doing so. As one targetted kiddo admitted, "I'm nervous because if he makes a mistake it will embarrass me and I won't show my face, but it is good to have him here because I can stick with him."

Braving the footlights to gain some insight into his own dad is Hollywood Square John Davidson, who has penned a theatrical meditation on his paternal/paternee relationship that he is bringing first to the college to which his father steered him.

And also living out a bit of his own life as curtains are drawn and shuttered is JD Nelson, who first got to live the part in his own life when his daughter was married in Indianapolis earlier this year, and just got to the lead in "Father of the Bride," (like the movie, but different) when the adaptation strutted across a Georgia stage.

'Tis better to be a father on stage or in real life? It probably depends on which of the parts you play and which of the stages you are at.