shakespeareismyjam:

schmergo:

Shakespeare has like a character named Antonio in about four or five of his plays, and the dude is usually somewhat minor, involved with the sea and possibly other men. So I have this theory that Shakespeare had a buddy named Antonio who was basically the Yoko Ono of the King’s Men.

Antonio would be this gruff, sexually-ambiguous, partially-literate Italian merchant/sailor dude who would occasionally show up in London and end up hangin’ out and drinking with the actors. Shakespeare would be like “EEEEYYY, come join in, brah!” and invariably write him a role in the show. The actors HATED it because he was terrible at acting, so terrible that he could never even remember his character’s name and Shakespeare would usually have to switch it to Antonio. Eventually, everyone just got so fed up with Antonio mucking up their shows that they burned down the Globe.

THIS IS THE POST. every time someone mentions shakespeare’s friend antonio and i go ‘there’s a post about that and it’s my favourite’ THIS IS THE POST