Shakespeare in LA

I uncovered startling news for the many fans of “Slings and Arrows,” the cult Canadian TV series about a fictional theater suspiciously similar to the Stratford Festival.

I had recently discovered this brilliant series, which ran for three seasons in both Canada and the United States, ending in 2007.Each of its three seasons focused on a different play by William Shakespeare that the repertory company was putting on: Hamlet, then MacBeth, and finally King Lear. Each six-episode season was funny and touching, but it was also greatly (and painlessly) illuminating about the works themselves. It starred Paul Gross (who recently starred on Broadway in “Private Lives”)  as the once-insane artistic director Geoffrey Tennant and his real-life wife Martha Burns as his lead actress and (former/still/complicated) love-of-his-life Ellen Fenshaw, but the entire cast was spot-on.  I loved this series. It is certainly the best backstage television series I’ve ever seen. Smash, the NBC series about the (fictional)…