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Rob Crisell is an author, actor, teacher, and Shakespearean in Temecula, CA. He teaches poetry and Shakespeare with the Murrieta Valley Union School District as part of its Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) program. He is a Shakespeare lecturer with Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. He has acted in The Merchant of Venice, Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), Baskerville, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Tempest (Prospero), Macbeth, Othello (Iago), and others. Over the quarantine, he has acted in Much Ado About Nothing and Merry Wives of Windsor (with Nathan Agin’s “A Working Actor’s Journey production) and King Lear (Quarantine Players). He has written and performed several one-man plays featuring Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Shakespeare in America. He’s the author of Shakespeare’s Book of Wisdom: Advice on Living a Wiser, Happier Life from William Shakespeare & Friends (DePortola Press 2018). His 2016 TED Talk is “How NOT to Hate Shakespeare.” His verse adaptation of Sophocles’ Electra will be produced by Full Circle Players in Riverside, California in October 2020. He is a graduate of Yale University and George Mason University Law School. For details, visit www.robcrisell.com or www.facebook/robcrisellactor/.

“Georges Danton Counsels the Protestors”

Here is my latest political satire poem, published on the Society for Classical Poets website. In it, the ghost of French Revolutionary icon Georges Danton comes to America and speaks to the protestors. I hope you like it.

An excerpt:

Georges Danton’s ghost arose from hell
And visited the U.S.A.
He found a group of protestors
And called to them: “One word, I pray—

“America is burning now,
But that’s how forests grow,” he said.
“Before I’d calm your righteous wrath,
I’d sooner see your nation dead.”

“They called my cause ‘the rights of man;’
Your cause is race equality.
But in the end, they’re merely means
To overthrow the polity…

A Poem for George Floyd Protestors, by Rob Crisell