All the World’s A Stage

A new audience favorite! This tongue-in-cheek work launches a barrage of Shakespearean insults at a comical conductor who keeps mis-cuing the altos!

Text

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances, and one man…
Away you cut-purse rascal, you filthy bung, away!
By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me.
Away you bottle-ale rascal, you basket-hilt, stale-juggler, you!
I think thou art an ass…[asset to this institution and this fine, choral ensemble.]
Thou wimpled, tickle-brained bladder! Thou dismal-dreaming nut-hook!
Thou flap-mouthed fustilarian! Thou currish, sheep-biting pigeon-egg!
Thou surly, mammering miscreant! Thou frothy, malmsey-nosed mumble-news!
Thou wayward, knotty-pated maltworm! Were I like thee I’d throw myself away!
Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Thine face is not worth sunburning, pray you stand farther from me.
An infinite, endless liar, the owner of no good quality.
You have not so much brain as earwax, your breath is sulfurous to smell.
What wind blew you hither? You’re unfit for any place but hell.
Go rot.
Were I like thee, I’d throw myself away. Away!

Texts by William Shakespeare, adapted by the composer. Supplemental text indicated by brackets.