When the Utah Shakespearean Festival invited me to do a painting celebrating their 40th anniversary in 2001, I decided to represent all of the thirty-eight plays of Shakespeare's canon in a single image. I gathered more than fifty dramatus personae – some are the "real" characters and others are the actors in rehearsal. Still others, inspired by "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," are not quite human. Many of the historically-based figures, Henry IV, V, VI and Richard II, for example, are closely modeled on contemporary likenesses. The image has some of the magic of theatre – where does the drama leave off and the magic begin? – and of Shakespeare in particular: what is reality and what is illusion? The setting is, naturally, the Old Globe Theatre, which I've embellished. The Latin behind the Bard, who stands in the middle, says: All the World's A Stage. – JCC