General Trivia, Part 2
Eugene Schieffelin, ornithologist and chairman of the American Acclimatization Society in 1877, sought to introduce all 600 bird species mentioned in Shakespeare to North America. While many attempts were unsuccessful, of which bird did he release 60 pairs in Central Park in 1890 and have now become an invasive species on the continent today?
European starling
Who is the most recent actor to don the guise of William Shakespeare in a feature film in 2025’s Hamnet, who also starred in All of Us Strangers and Gladiator II (and will play Paul McCartney in the 2028 film)?
Paul Mescal
In Act IV.5, Ophelia gives out six types of flowers, only two of which she mentions have specific purposes: fennel, columbine, rue, daisy, rosemary for remembrance, and pansies for what?
Thoughts
The star and director of The Muppet Theatre’s production of Macbeth in the fifth episode of Muppets Now is which blue, scraggly, reptilian Muppet?
Uncle Deadly
“The Taming of the Shoe,” produced by Monsterpiece Theatre on Sesame Street (2587), was written by William Shoespeare – a man of what foot-related profession, according to host Alistair Cookie?
Podiatrist
In 1613, The Globe Theatre burned down after being open for just 14 years when a cannon was fired during a production of which Shakespeare play?
Henry VIII
What was the first production by the now-traveling theatre company Shake on the Lake in their inaugural 2012 season?
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
The term “retrograde” was used to mean “contrary” for the first time in English literature in which Shakespeare play, which may be his only work wherein subtle scientific themes and motifs are used throughout?
Hamlet
The picture for July in the Miss Piggy Calendar 1982: Great Lovers of the Silver Screen fittingly features Miss Piggy and Kermit, now with a (temporary) pair of ears, lying together as which two Shakespearean characters?
Titania and Bottom
Baby Bear, perhaps fittingly with his fairy tale origins, shouts, “My kingdom for some ____,” as he finds himself hungry during an episode of Sesame Street.
Porridge
Among the only six official documentations of Shakespeare’s signature, how many different spellings did he use?
Six
What was the first Shakespeare Production staged by the Rochester Community Players which opened on January 3, 1936 during their 17th season?
Twelfth Night
While the exact number of “problem plays” differs amongst scholars, as well as which plays are included in this category, there is another theatrical portmanteau which perhaps more appropriately describes some of these plays which defy traditional genre conventions. What is that term?
Tragicomedy
Christopher Reeve recites lines of Shakespeare while which Muppet is on book for him, engaging in some accidental wordplay before they break out into the song, “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”? (418)
Fozzie Bear
Which actor reprises the role of Hamlet in Sesame Street’s Monsterpiece Theatre after appearing as the character already on film in 1990 under Franco Zeffirelli’s direction, most of whose lines in the skit are “words, words, words”? (3047)
Mel Gibson
Upon his death, per his will, Shakespeare bequeathed to his wife his “second best” what?
Bed
One production of Hamlet which leans more heavily into the play’s Oedipal interpretation was Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film. Playing the Prince of Denmark at 40 years old, what was the age gap between him and actress Eileen Herlie, who played his mother Gertrude?
Eleven years (younger than Olivier)
Following “d' hand, de fingre, de nails, d' arme, d'elbow, de nick, de sin,” which two English words does Princess Katherine of France find obscene and describe as “les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user”?
Foot and count (dress)
Gonzo recites Shakespeare “in a major feat of death-defying intellectualism never seen before” as he is suspended by his nose from a feather boa nine feet in the air. Which play’s opening line does he quote – the only one with an “Antonio” as the first to speak? (222)
The Merchant of Venice
One day while Elmo is watching TV, a teaser on the Dog Channel mentions the upcoming segments Woof or Consequences with Bob Barker followed by Hamlet, starring a dog of what breed?
Great Dane
The Montagues and Capulets are referenced as warring families in what famous work written a quarter-millenium before Shakespeare was born?
The Divine Comedy
Margaret Hughes is believed to be the first woman to ever act on an English stage, making her debut at 30 years old playing what leading role in a Shakespearean tragedy in 1660?
Desdemona
What is the only Shakespeare play to contain a word that begins with the letter X, from the following passage? "Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates’ Xanthippe, or a worse,
She moves me not, or not removes at least
Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas."
The Taming of the Shrew
Celebrated French Flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal and Rowlf accompany Miss Piggy on the aria, “Lo! Hear the Gentle Lark” – a piece written for the episode using these lines from which work of Shakespeare as lyrics? “Lo here the gentle lark, weary of rest, / From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, / And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast / The sun ariseth in his majesty;” (510)
Venus and Adonis
In the Elmo’s World episode, “Fish,” Kingfish bids farewell at the end by uttering the same final three words spoken by the Ghost of King Hamlet in Act I.5 before he exits the stage. What are those three words (ignoring later lines from beneath the stage)?
“Adieu. Remember me.”