The World's About to Go Wild for the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's Death

2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Williams Shakespeare and the whole planet is about to come down with a terrible case of Bard fever. Hope you’re all big Cymbeline fans!

Play festivals, concerts, reissuing of books, and a whole litany of Shakespeare-centered events have already been scheduled for next year. “In our lifetimes, this will be the biggest Shakespeare extravaganza,” Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro tells the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ’s Jennifer Maloney and Pia Catton report:

Theater companies, orchestras, cinemas and opera houses are presenting his works—and works inspired by him—in venues ranging from London and Duluth, Minn., to Tehran and South Sudan. A New Orleans jazz funeral will mark his death. Thehashtag #Shakespeare400 will beckon Shakespeare-lovers onTwitter. And a publishing frenzy has already begun, with titles ranging from academic treatises to a cocktail recipe collection (“Shakespeare, Not Stirred”), to fictional adaptations by Anne Tyler, Howard Jacobson and Margaret Atwood.

Also:

So far, more than 140 Shakespeare-related titles are listed for next year on Amazon.com, including more than 40 in April alone. (The anniversary date is April 23.)

Better 400 years too soon than a minute too late, I guess.

Image via Getty.