Interview with Author Erica Cantley - “Teaching Hamlet As My Father Died”
I spoke with Erica Cantley about her new book “Teaching Hamlet As My Father Died”. A wonderful book whether you’re a Shakespeare fan or not. It’s a very personal, inside look at Ms. Cantley’s experience of teaching Hamlet to high school students at the same time that her father was facing the end of his life. A recommended read for everyone - currently available only at amazon.com. (More interviews here.)
If you enjoyed this, share it on Twitter or Facebook or copy & forward this link: TeachingHamlet-HarkJournal
Follow Erica Cantley here:
Website: https://ericawcantley.com
Facebook.com: Erica Cantley
Twitter: @TeachingHamlet
Instagram: @ericawcantley
There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, ’tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
5.2.233-237
***
If you’d rather read the interview, a rough transcript is below.
Interview with author Erica Cantley, “Teaching Hamlet As My Father Died”
Michael Van Osch: Hey, this is Michael Van Osch. Welcome to the Hark Journal. This is the next in our installment of the interview series that we do. And today I’m really happy to talk to, author of, Teaching Hamlet As My Father Died. This is Erica Cantley Erica. Hi, how are you?
Erica Cantley: I’m great, Michael, thank you so much for having me.
Michael Van Osch: Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. I, we’ve talked a little bit in the past, but I wanted to really have you on here so that people could hear about your book. And we want to talk about that and a few other things, but, you know, I read it recently, just finished it and I thought it was absolutely amazing.
And I’m again, Teaching Hamlet as My Father Died. Is that correct title, I said the wrong thing. So Erica, tell us a little bit about the book and, maybe start off with what the main focus is of the book. I mean, the title is fairly self-explanatory, but tell us in your words.
Erica Cantley: It is actually, I should probably be, you know, really professional new author and put it right here.
There’s the book. That’s what it looks like. It’ll probably fall down, but let’s see. Yes, the title does in a way, speak for itself, basically the book, kind of toggles between the teacher-student relationship, the text of Hamlet itself, and then my memories of my dad. So the dad part is probably split in two in the sense that as he’s dying those stories as, keep kind of going in and out of it.
And then also flashbacks. And, and I think that, it’s just, I mean, we’ll get into it, but I’ll just launch in right now and say, you know, when somebody is dying or dies, it’s. it’s all about memory. You know, it all comes back to you. You’re, you’re recalling someone’s life. And in these, you know, kind of Citizen Kane kind of, you know, flashbacks, everybody has the main things that they remember, but they remember other stuff differently.
And that’s what you do when someone dies. You talk about, you know, what you remember, what the highlights were. And so a lot of that, was happening when my dad was dying. So I kind of, it’s in a way, I mean, it’s kind of maybe genre-bending in the sense that, it could be considered a workplace story, you know, because it absolutely talks about what it’s like to have to show up to work and, you know, to be on stage.
Right while you’re grieving, so that’s the overview.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. And that was, that was, that was so amazing in the book. How you, how you kind of wove the two pieces together of, you know, we got to know the classes, the students that you were teaching Hamlet to and who they were, and a bit of their personalities and how they reacted, which was really fun and fascinating.
And, you know, you can see yourself as a student or a teacher being in that class. No, no question about it. And then, and then how you would switch from that to how that made you think about your dad and what he was going through, what you were obviously going through. I found it really fascinating the way you were able to dovetail those two together throughout the book, was that hard to do?
Erica Cantley: Well, I mean, first of all, this took me five years to write, so everything was hard about it. But I did. Yes and no. I mean, I think as an English teacher, you’re always looking for the analog. You’re always comparing, you know, so that is like this, that reminds me of that.
So that was happening naturally. for years before my father was dying, you know, I would see this and I had been obsessed with death for kind of a while before my dad died. So I was paying attention. But so some of it came naturally. and some of it, what, what really prompt me to write the book, at least in part, was how much more I started seeing in the play.
As I was going through it, you know, I mean, I thought I knew Hamlet pretty well, and there’s that old cliche that every time you, you know, read a play or study it or teach it or perform it, you find something new. And I say in the book, I kind of always just assumed that was something nice that people said, but eventually you would know it all right?
If you try it harder, not for long enough, but it’s when we like any like most art, you know, when we change what we find there changes. And so then, you know, the brilliance of Shakespeare just became so much more profound when he, you know, “my gorge rises at it”. It’s like, Oh yeah. Now I know. Wow. Yeah.
That’s exactly what happens when someone is dying or is dead and gone and you know, just a skull or in the earth, like you want to throw up. And so, I got just a lot and I was taking notes. I was taking notes from the beginning, in my lesson plans, you know, every time something came up and, and then I started working with about a year or so in, I started working with this wonderful personal editor, Beth Wareham.
And she actually came up with the idea. I had it, it was all over the map and it was, I guess it was two years in, cause it had covered two year’s time and it had a lot more kind of spiritual experiences, things that, like a nature spirit vision, things that I had had, go on walks and she said, why don’t you try, making it trace the shape of the play and really only do while you’re teaching Hamlet.
And since you read the book, you know, I cheated on that a little bit. It wasn’t just, the play was a little before and a little after, but that was a real genius suggestion on her part. And it made everything come together more easily.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it really does come together. And before I ask any more questions I want to read for the folks, your bio, because it’s very important. I find it very important and very interesting too, because you’ve got a really interesting, like a lot of us, a really interesting mix of different things going on that you brought to the book as well.
And so you have a BA in literature and writing from Columbia and, you studied with the great James Shapiro. You have a master’s in English and writing from Arcadia University and a degree in Culinary Restaurant Management. So I thought that was really interesting. And you obviously had a career there too.
It says before becoming a high school English teacher. You had a career in the restaurant business, working at the highest level of fine dining in Boston and New York. And you became the first female maître d’ in the Daniel Boulud restaurant empire. So congratulations. That’s fantastic. And also, so you taught English and this is where the book takes place, but you taught English film and creative writing at the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania for 16 years.
That’s where your, your book, Teaching Hamlet as My Father Died, takes place. And you took a hiatus from the classroom teaching in the hopes of creating a third career of teaching hospitality management. And you’re currently a maître d’ in Brooklyn, waiting for the restaurants to reopen and the world to get going again.
We’re all hoping that this will happen in the new year, but what year was this? That did it actually happened with your father?
my dad died in ’14. Okay. Yep. And so, you know, beyond taking notes, I wasn’t writing, you know, I didn’t, I wasn’t working on the book, but basically what happened was, then I I’m pretty sure, I don’t know if that’s it’s in there or not, but basically, when you’re a teacher, you always think on the academic calendar, you know, you’re always thinking, well, okay, this holiday or this season, or this is what I’m doing that book, this is what I’m doing that play.
And it really makes a difference in my job. I always taught Hamlet in the spring. We were on a trimester and, for the seniors that I taught. I just taught Hamlet and I had 40 days or you know, about 40 days and you’d have 20 days with one section and 20 days with the other section. So it was all Hamlet, all spring, which was great.
And when we got the news that my dad, you know, the, ‘there’s no more we can do for you’ message. Then I kind of thought about it. It was February. And I said, okay, you know, I got to go in and visit him. I’ve got to do this and that. And it was weird too, because I was teaching at the time, To Kill A Mockingbird and also Corelli’s Mandolin.
And those both have these amazing father figures in them. And again, when you’re teaching, it’s not only you’re thinking about the calendar, but your head is in that book and in that world and in with those characters and with those life lessons and stuff, so you can’t help, but connect it. And again, because you’re an English teacher, you’re looking always to make something out of maybe nothing or maybe something, So then anyway, I was just thinking it out and I said, Oh, okay.
So my dad’s definitely not going to last till the end of the year, school year. So I’m going to be teaching Hamlet while my father, as my father dies. And then I said, that’s a good title. So that’s the other reason why, you know, I started thinking and you know, there’s, there’s other stuff too, but I did want to tell his story and another, you know, thing, the lines up is this idea of the play of Hamlet ends with Hamlet asking Horatio, you know, “absent thee from felicity a while and draw thy breath in pain to tell my story”. And that’s very much, what it was like for me, but I felt like I needed to do it and wanted to do it.
Yeah. Yeah. And that, that answers the question that I was going to ask about, you know, why take on such a, such a big project. But it, but it makes sense. And to make it harder from, from my perspective anyway, and I’m sure it was true, but you know, your dad was living in Costa Rica.
Not like you could go visit him on a weekend or something, right?
Erica Cantley: No, that was the thing that I had a lot of issues and I worked through most of them, but, I definitely had issues prior to his death about them moving there.
Especially when they knew that he was going to die of cancer. You know, even if they lived in Florida, I could have flown down every other weekend or something, but yeah, so that was hard.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, for sure. Where did this love of Shakespeare come from for you? And is that why you became a teacher?
Erica Cantley: Well, interesting, good question. I mean, first of all, really, and truly, having James Shapiro as my first Shakespeare teacher was amazing. I already loved literature. I was maybe a little intimidated by Shakespeare, but certainly interested, had a little in high school, but nothing that I really remembered. I wasn’t much of a conscious human being in high school, probably why I had to go back and, you know, Live it again.
But yeah, I mean, he was just amazing. He would sit on the desk with his legs crossed and just talk to you and bring it all alive. And I had no idea at the time. I was very fortunate and well-advised because, you know, I must have talked to my advisor and said what I was interested in and you’re an English major.
They said, you know, you’ve got to make sure that you get to take James Shapiro’s Shakespeare class. I might, who knows? I mean, I might’ve missed it. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have, but anyway, so I took a couple classes with him and that was amazing. That was amazing. And yes, it did make me want to be a teacher.
The other thing that happened was I met this woman who it, Mrs. Esther, who became my mentor. But she was really into Shakespeare, she also brought it alive. And so that, you know, both of those made me feel like, yeah, this would really be fun. And what a luxury, you know, I mean, what if you do get to teach us, how long do you have to work and what do you have to earn to be able to actually teach this?
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. And it’s, it’s amazing, you know, we all have these teachers that make it a big effect on us. And then, I loved seeing throughout the book and at the end too, how you had an effect on your students. And the way you taught Hamlet. And there’s a couple of things I’m going to refer to later. I got to pull up my notes because I really liked a few of the, a few of the things, but, when did the book come out and we’re, and it’s on amazon.com obviously is that’s the best place to get it or local bookstores.
Erica Cantley: Yes. I wish you weren’t some local bookstores it’s not in there yet. it’s published by Lisa Hagan, books, and that’s an independent publisher that publishes through Amazon. So that’s where you can get it. And, you know, hopefully some of my local bookstores, I mean, again, it came out this summer and I think, you know, if things had been different and events were happening, then, there were some bookstores that I would’ve gotten into, but nothing that’s all really slow right now.
Michael Van Osch: So. Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, for those of us in the, in the theater side of things too, it’s, everybody is really hungry for Shakespeare and, you know, I’ve have seen enough zoom editions of things and, you know, it’s what we have to do, but it’s not real theatre quote, unquote, real theatre.
And I found this book was a fantastic connection to try and bridge that gap a little bit, because we can’t go to the theater and, you know, it brought back a lot of good memories for me too, of, of just exploring Shakespeare and, and, and kind of getting into it on my own, which happened long after high school for me as well so.
Speaking of the schools, you know,
Erica Cantley: Thank you by the way it’s very kind of you to say, I appreciate it.
Michael Van Osch: Oh yeah. I mean, seriously, anybody that’s listening to this, just get on Amazon and get the book because it’s just a wonderful read. I thought it would be good, you know, because of the description and the subject matter that I liked, but it exceeded all my expectations. I, you know, I think once people find out about this, it’s going to be .flying off the shelf, people have to have to grab it for sure.
But let’s talk a little bit about Shakespeare and the schools because, it’s obviously very important. And what role do you see in this day and age Shakespeare playing in schools and with students?
Erica Cantley: Well, that is a big topic of discussion of course, with teachers right now. And, you know, first, just to clarify that I’m, I don’t have my own classroom right now, which in a lot of ways is breaking my heart. I know that teachers are having the hardest time they’ve ever had and yet, it’s also an opportunity to learn a new way and to show up for these students.
It’s very alarming to me. As much as we’re all suffering to think about young people who don’t have any other frame of reference. I find that very concerning as I know everybody does. But what I was very fortunate to do this summer, I did a lot of workshops with different theaters with the Folger Library and with The American Shakespeare Center, particularly did a bunch of stuff for teachers and some workshop training.
And. Then, I mean, a lot of other things, as you know, there’s been a lot of programming. So I’ve sat in on things and partaken in things, and the conversation is really about how to use Shakespeare as a lens to look through. I mean, there are definitely some people who say, you know, no more Shakespeare, we don’t need it.
Like, let’s move on. You know that he’s the quintessential dead white guy. We don’t need this. There was a lot of work there’s been in the last few years, a lot of work, with Othello - I sat through a wonderful four week Othello 2020 put on the by Red Bull. If you didn’t see that you should definitely look it up because amazing these artists coming together, they were discussing the play and also doing a table read of it.
There’s, there’s still so much there, but I think, everybody tends to feel that it should be paired with other works with more contemporary works with, works for more diverse authors their rights, et cetera. But I really want to put a pitch in for one of the coolest things I’ve seen and one of the most definitive proofs that you got to keep doing this and using it is a, there’s a woman, Melissa Friedman, in Harlem who has the Epic Theatre Ensemble. I think I’m getting the wording of that right. She works with high school kids and every year they do kind of a remix of a play. So they take the play, they studied the play and then they say, let’s, let’s make it our own. Okay. And this year they were doing Hamlet and then the whole thing got shut down.
So they did it, an online version, and each, you know, each character is a different box. They pulled it off. And, and you and your viewers have got to see this it’s on YouTube somewhere. It’s on my, It’s on my Instagram, you can link onto it and find it. But let me tell you what these kids did.
Setting Hamlet in like some projects in Harlem and the King that got killed was, you know, kind of a big social leader. And, you know, and anyway it was amazing, amazing and that’s where you see that the themes are there, the structure is there. And just like, you know, when you first start writing or when you’re teaching writing, you always say, you’re not copying if you follow a model, you use the model just like you would use a sonnet, you know, a sonnet. Yes. It’s a set form that somebody else made up. But within that, you can do so much, same thing with the plays. And that’s me.
If anybody ever wanted to say, we don’t have room for Shakespeare anymore. I would show them that the other thing I think is we had to be very careful, to always remember that being comfortable with Shakespeare, and not feeling like you need to walk out of the room and people talk about it - that’s social currency, that’s cultural currency. And if we’re telling anybody, any student, any young person that, they don’t need that or that that’s not for them or that like time has passed on that.
I think that’s cheating them. I don’t think that’s right.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it occurs to me too, when we’re younger, we don’t know what we don’t know. And we see no need for certain things, but if we’re lucky enough to have someone persist or teach or, or, you know, try to set us on a path that because they know more, that’s the greatest gift there is out there.
Hence why we love teachers.
Erica Cantley: Exactly. The ones who get excited, you may not even care about what they care about, but you know, that it’s worth caring about.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you can always find a way into Shakespeare if you stick with it or hanging around it or whatever, because I’ve been in both sides and probably a lot of people have where you’re like, you know, 10th grade reading, Julius Caesar and going, okay, whatever.
And then, you know, being, I remember seeing Hamlet at Georgia Shakes went back when it was still in business. Unfortunately it left us, maybe about eight years ago now, but just a fantastic Hamlet and you know, I’ll never forget it. And that helped propel me into oh, okay. This is, this is more than just, I don’t understand this, this guy.
Erica Cantley: Nice.
Michael Van Osch: There’s a few highlights that I want to, I want to just talk about briefly here, because as I was reading the book, I read it on Kindle, I had to do some highlighting and I don’t normally do that with, you know, books that aren’t business books or something like that. And there’s just a few, I want to find them here and read a few of them to the folks because, and maybe we can chat about them a little bit, but let’s see.
Page 38. So, this was very interesting. and this is you talking: “the hours he spent with us were ephemeral. And each night when I folded myself into bed, I felt like the pointy red hands of a giant clock were stabbing into my gut and throat. Time was in charge. Time was all we had left and not much of it.” And it goes on.
“Why does it seem like knowing how and when something bad is going to happen will somehow make it easier?” Wow. Tell us a little, but a little bit more about, what it was like to go through this scenario with family members and, and cause I know you talk about them a lot in the book as well.
Erica Cantley: Yeah. Well, It’s one of the cliches of grief that, everybody handles death differently.
And you certainly find that. I was not in denial. I was like, dad is going to die. You know, I knew that and I was experiencing it differently. I think then you certainly his wife, and his sister and my sister but, I don’t know. It was just so strange, you know, why I, one of the big things I said, I want to be ready.
You know, I’m going to be ready for him to die. and everybody would say, well, you can’t be ready, you know, your first parents. And I said, all right, I’m going to be ready that I can’t be ready. And I don’t know. I still haven’t totally figured that out. I mean, you know, there’s a lot of people that think the most important thing is that they’re there when their parent dies.
And that was not the case for me. Now was the fact that they were, he was in Costa Rica, was that just made it practical or would I have not wanted to be with him when he died? Maybe there’s a part of me that thinks he’s not really dead because I didn’t ever see his corpse. I mean, I have all the pictures in my head.
I have all the pictures from the funeral that all, everything that Maureen told me, very, very vivid, you know, but anyway, but it was weird. It was weird. It was hard. It’s always hard, I guess.
Michael Van Osch: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Erica Cantley: Because it’s like, why did I, why was it so important to know when it was going to happen? Why didn’t that, that was something I learned very, very, big lesson that I got from my dad’s wife, Maureen, which is, she just wanted that every possible hour that she could have.
And I just wanted to know when it was going to happen. Sure. Because I knew it was going to happen. And so I didn’t live with him, you know who wasn’t. Yep.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s such a hard topic to deal with, but, you know, by you dealing with it and putting it on a page, you are going to, and already are helping so many other people come to grips with these kinds of issues.
So, you know, I mean, what an important work, And I want to read another one here and it’s maybe a bit long, but I just want to read it and we don’t have to talk about it too much, but it’s, it’s just so people need to get this. It says, “Hamlet, the son, the son of a celebrated warrior King is obsessed with how death is the great equalizer.
He was a man. There are great men, famous men, men of means and men of consequences. There are rich successful fathers. Fathers should build fortunes, fathers who are pillars of the community. Fathers who are Kings , fathers with connections and influence, but in the end, no matter who they were, they all go back into the dirt. When your father dies most of the time, you don’t care how accomplished or average he was in the eyes of the world. What matters is your own personal loss. He was a man. He was my father.” And it’s lines like that. And, and passages like that, that really caught me and made me think through this. You know, I still have my father and my mother.
But, I have a lot of friends and acquaintances, close ones who have really struggled through losing their parents. And, and this, again, I think is, is such a great homage to that, but what did it feel like when you were finally done with the book? And it got published.
Erica Cantley: Well, honestly it was a little anticlimactic because it was in the middle of quarantine.
So that was actually hard. I mean, I’ve envisioned my whole life, my first book and I’m a person who is very social. And I wanted to have parties and I want to have a book tour. I was gonna use my book as the excuse to go visit my friends all over the country, you know? So, but that being said, by the time it did come out, you know, it was July.
So I knew that that wasn’t going to happen. So in that sense, you know, I also have that element of, Hey, I finally got it, you know, across the finish line during lockdown, maybe I’d still be working on it if I was still working in a restaurant. So who knows? So in that way it felt good. And, you know, we did a few things to kind of commemorate it.
But, but it’s been a little anti-climactic I have to admit I don’t, it doesn’t, it almost doesn’t seem real. I think the day, the day I see it in the window of a bookstore, then I’ll probably have a complete meltdown.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, well that day’s coming. And hopefully when all of this lifts too, that you can reschedule the book tour because, you’ve probably thought of this, but I’m thinking man, every theater, every Shakespeare’s theatre across the country, you know, has these great lists of all their, all their people that buy tickets.
And would you love to read something like this? So. Maybe we’ll help you organize a tour from theatre to theatre.
Erica Cantley: That would be great. I would love that. I would love that.
Michael Van Osch: I mean, it’s a perfect audience right?
Erica Cantley: Do a pop-up book signing in the lobby.
Michael Van Osch: Absolutely. Absolutely. Let’s do it. Now is there another book?
Erica Cantley: You’re on, I need to take you up on that?
Michael Van Osch: All right. All right. You got my number, you know, Is there another book on the way?
Erica Cantley: Yes, they’re the first book I wrote was a gastronomical murder mystery set in the New York restaurant world. And I never did anything with it. And so now I’m changing it, I’m stripping out the murder mystery part and it’s, kind of maître D’ diaries.
That’s a working title. It’s not a memoir, although it is, heavily, you know, inspired by real life. But it’s set, before during and after nine 11 in the New York restaurant world. So interestingly, what I found, I did do some pop-ups, for the, for this book, this summer in Brooklyn at the park, Fort Green park and stuff.
And I had kind of found out, wow, I didn’t know it at the time, but this book right now is a bit of a piece of nostalgia because people can’t be in classrooms. And now I’m writing another work that is, you know, the goal is to capture that world, that really doesn’t exist anymore. I mean, there will be little remnants of it, but yeah, fewer.
Fewer remnants of it. So, but, but I want it to be fun. But, but that’s also, there’s some grief there too. So I don’t know what my problem is. I should do maybe a murder mystery, but not yet.
Michael Van Osch: Well, you know, that’s the other thing and you know, anyone that’s a teacher needs to get this book because they will, they will. so get it, you know, my wife was a teacher, you know, my parents and sisters are teachers. And so I kind of know that world too. And so, yeah, it’s, it’s very interesting from that perspective as well. You, it’s easy, you make it easy to put yourself into your shoes, reading it. And, and again, and it just flows.
Like, it really is like, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna stop reading this chapter, you know, like bring the next one, but I’m not going to stop bringing it. So I just, I just loved it. Is there anything else that you want to share with us about the book itself or the book writing, the way you were, you had to go about it or?
Erica Cantley: Well, I what’s on my mind right now because I was, I’ve been watching a bunch of your other interviews and people talking about Shakespeare. You know, what’s the point of, why are, why are so many people going to Shakespeare right now? Right? I mean, we know that Shakespeare is popular, but there’s more and more, it seems like all the time.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah.
Erica Cantley: Something that I find interesting is the delving into the details of a play like that and what it takes to figure it out and unpack the layers. It’s such a great escape, you know, not everybody finds that joy in that, but it, it can be an escape. And why do we go to this 400 year old work?
You know, when we need to go somewhere. And I think that there’s an escapist element of it. I think there’s this piece where it makes us feel small, which sometimes is not what we need. Like we already feel infinitesimal enough. But what I then found was that, especially with Hamlet that I connected to this universal.
It’s, you know, I feel like whenever you talk about Shakespeare, you use so many cliches, but this universal human experience of, you know, if you haven’t lost, you go into a movie theater and you look around and you say, half the people probably lost their parents. Half the people have gone through this horrible thing that I am going through and the other half are going to, you know, and so there’s something about that, that it might not be uplifting, but it keeps you company.
And, and even if my life is one, what one fifth, one sixth, as long as Shakespeare’s works have lived so far, I’m still part of that timelessness, because I’ve been in there, I’ve been in that world. So I like that.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Yeah. I like that too. There’s and you, you touched on, on the death and grief again, and, and I, I’ve got a couple of things.
I just got to read to the folks before we kinda close it off here, but, and it’s from your epilogue in the book and it’s really, it’s really took me,
Well, I’ll just read it. “It’s not death that teaches us, but grief. Death is the Reaper. Grief is the knower. First death comes knocking or bursts through the kitchen door and then grief moves in. Death and grief have taught me there’s nothing in this world to be overly proud of because, #wormfood, we’re all going to die. The question is, how do we want to live?” And isn’t that? Isn’t that the key to everything? How are we going to live? Because you’re right. I mean, we’re all on this journey and we know we’re not getting out.
So how do we live? And I think that it’s extra relevant in this time of COVID. I mean, I really, really do. It’s you know, we’ve a lot of us will, I’ll just talk for me. I’ve had some extra time, you know, not having, not having the full-time work anymore of saying, what am I going to do with my life? What have I been doing with my life?
Where’s this going to go? And it’s up to me and the time is ticking. So, let’s do something about it. So again, Erica, fantastic, your book Teaching Hamlet as My Father Died, people have to get it. I’ve got, I’ve got, we’ll do whatever we can to promote it from our end, for sure. Of course. And, you know, I need to ask you the final question that I ask everybody in these interviews and that is if Shakespeare himself was on the zoom call and he got to ask him a question, just one, what would you ask him?
Erica Cantley: Well, I would ask him how close did Maggie O’Farrell get to the true story of your life? I think she is divinely inspired. I think that’s it. And that’s I really do.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Another very popular book that everybody seems to be reading right now.
Erica Cantley: Oh my gosh. But, I mean, I just really, I want to be in, I attended, a book club, meeting on that with the Folger library a couple of weeks ago, but I, I don’t know.
I couldn’t really get into talking about it because I felt like, well, probably everyone here is smarter than I am, so I’m not going to do that, but I want to sit around with a bunch of, you know, people who have read that, especially some people who. I’m already loved Shakespeare and stuff, but there’s just, just, I just have to do that, you know?
I think she got it. I think it makes sense.
Michael Van Osch: Well, I haven’t read it yet, but it’s coming next, so.
Erica Cantley: You will love it.
Michael Van Osch: And I’ll put a show notes down for all of these things that we’ve mentioned end of the Harlem theatre that you mentioned and all that we’ll, we’ll make sure that people can access that. I am going to end with, this last highlight of, because I love it.
It’s one of your high school students that you were teaching. And it’s at graduation. And, you know, as kids are, as we thought we were so tough graduating high school, and it sounds like somebody passed out a box of cigars to the boys and they were, you know, trying to be big men about it and everything.
And, I don’t remember his name, but one of your students said came up to you and said, “Miss Erica”, and then he puffs on his cigar puff puff. “I really, really liked Hamlet”, puff. Don’t tell anyone it’s too embarrassing, but I really liked it”, puff puff. So there you go. You made an impact. You’re making an impact.
We love it. We love you. Thanks so much for joining us, Erica.
Erica Cantley: Thank you, Michael. And I’m really touched by how much you appreciate the book. It means a lot to me.
Michael Van Osch: Absolutely. We’ll talk soon. Stay on the line after we say goodbye here. Thanks again.
Erica Cantley: Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Michael Van Osch: Bye-bye.
