The problem is that it's such a big/prestige part that few young actors have the chops and/or status to get the role.

Same issue you run into with Romeo and Juliet-- they're supposed to be fourteen? At least, Juliet, I remember for sure is. I can't remember if Romeo is the same age or older. But you have to find some youthful looking actors who have the chops to take on the part.

I read and loved Les Miserables in Jr Hi, but could not get through Don Quixote. It may have been a bad translation, though.

With Les Mis, I learned about the power of hope and with Don Quixote, I learned about the power of dreams. The nice thing about both is that I was able to talk about them with my grandma who was a voracious reader. And of course, her copy of Don Quixote was in the original Spanish, so I think I got more out of it because she could explain things that maybe didn't translate as well.

Yeah, Juliet's supposed to be just shy of her 14th birthday.

NURSE: "Even or odd, of all days of the year/Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen."

(...er, I may be misquoting that one slightly, because it's, fuck, eighteen years since I played the Nurse, but that's the jist.) I think it's fair to assume that Romeo's only a little older.

iirc, the Franco Zefirelli movie had Juliet played by a girl of 16 or so, and she was awesome. But, yeah, it must be a bastard getting sufficiently young actors with the chops for the roles.

Olivia Hussey made a wonderful Juliet, Fay.

I think the King James Bible is something that people should read at least once in their lives, being the antecedent to a number of phrases and traditions that carry through the English language and American culture.

I have to vote meh. I had a churchy kindergarden. So I knew The Story of Easter, and How Christ Was Born, and Jonah And The Whale. Maybe one or two others? And these were "portrayed by pieces of felt on posterboard" vague. That was the extent of my religious education. I picked things up from context, or I looked them up when I was curious enough. Or I missed them completely and later on went "Oh, wow! I missed that!" And if none of those things happened and I still didn't get the reference (and I'm sure that has happened) it probably wasn't that important. Nice, yes. An added bonus that I missed. But not crucial.

I certainly haven't read the entire Bible in any translation. I suppose I might someday, but I don't feel like I'm missing so much that it's a priority. I guess I think a good education is more about stimulating the desire to learn. The rote "you need to read this, even if it's drudge work, because it'll be referenced later in other things that will also feel like complete drudgery" is what puts people off reading completely. If you already like reading, you'll put up with it. If you don't, that'll guarantee that you associate literature with misery.

I think the same thing happens with math and science. I understand the attitude of "first you must learn the fundamentals, and then you can learn about the cool shit" but when you're dealing with pre-teens and teens, and the cool shit is years away, I'm not sure that's reasonable. You obviously need some basics, but as far as inspiring the desire to learn, I think it's a lot more effective to dive in and then go, "Why'd that happen? Let's dig in and figure it out. Oh dear, we appear to have learned some fundamentals. Damn our luck."

...Wow, apparently I had a rant built up that I didn't know about. Sorry, Corwood, I didn't mean to turn you into a straw man. I think reading portions of the Bible has benefits, but only if you're already interested. So I guess on review this was all about the implications of the word "should" and that's petty nitpicking but I already wrote all of this so: ha!

My Mom always wanted to start a class at my high school that she called cocktail party culture, where you would learn things like basic plots of major operas and such. I imagine there could be a whole week on "Bible stories you should know the gist of."

I believe there is a reference somewhere in the text that implies Hamlet is 30. However, he has supposedly just come home from school, and it doesn't make sense to many scholars that Hamlet would be still studying at 30. I don't remember all of the specifics anymore.

clears throat, puts on Hamlet Hat

In the 2nd Quarto's first court scene, Claudius & Gertrude ask Hamlet to not return to Wittenberg, as he had supposedly been planning. Also, as noted above, his age is specifically set at 30 in the Gravedigger scene. However, in both the First Quarto and the First Folio, there is no mention of that, and Yorick has only been in the ground for 12 years, not 23.

There's a school of thought that the "good" quarto, Q2, contains Shakespeare's revisions after Richard Burbage originated the role of Hamlet at the age of 32.

I read the bible, but not the KJV, when I was growing up Methodist. Somewhere or other I have a split Bible, with the KJV text in one column and a more modern text in the next column. I might go back and compare some things when I have more free time.

I sometimes wish I'd been through some Catholic instruction for art appreciation. You can tell the woman in suchandso painting is Saint Catherine because there's a wheel there? Oooooh-kaaaay. Not quite intuitive.

Speaking of Hamlet and the right age to play him, David Tennant's in talks to star in a movie adaptation.

[link]

I think a Hamlet where the title character is deliberately portrayed as being Way Too Old For This Shit would be fascinating and wonderful (and has probably been done), but that's not the movie KB made. He was playing the standard issue Young And Brash Hamlet, but doing it as a middle-aged actor in a stupid wig.

Was it Number the Stars by Lois Lowry?

[or] Bernie Magruder and the Case of the Big Stink

Couldn't be either of those, since I read the book back in the late '70s, and those were both written long after that. It was more of a fluffy "kids stumble into a crime in progress and escape using their mad secret communication skillz!" plot than those titles.

Thanks for the suggestions, though!