Four points of entry for grasping what is happening in a Shakespeare play; approaching a single dramatic scene; Shakespeare's richly metaphorical use of language; the playwright's use of stagecraft; his plays require one's own powers of imagination.

Imagining theatrical London as it exists in Shakespeare's time; Shakespeare's fundamental intent to hold the mirror up to nature to imitate the real world; the milieu of Elizabethan theater; the playwright creates theatrical reality through language.

In his comedic plays, Shakespeare draws on the classical Roman model of comedy; in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", he expands the form, using the archetypal plot devices of blocked love; the escape from urban life to the magical world of the forest.

Exploring key principles for understanding and appreciating Shakespeare's comedies; the thematic elements of a shift from friendship to romantic love; the three-part structure of the comedies leads inevitably to reconciliation and regeneration.

Shakespeare's primary tool as a playwright is words themselves as dramatic expressions of character and meaning; In "Romeo and Juliet", Shakespeare ingeniously uses language to distinguish class and personality; he uses the poetic form of the sonnet.

In "Romeo and Juliet", how the famous balcony scene shifts the action and sense of the play toward a new character-driven tragedy; the role of the tension between fate and free will; the arc of development; Juliet becomes a great tragic figure.