Wouldn’t it be great to see a Shakespeare play with the insight of an expert? You’ll get that chance at the Butterfield Library this Sunday at 5pm when renowned Shakespeare professor Martin Meisel discusses Troilus and Cressida, one of the Hudson Valley’s Shakespeare’s Festival’s 2010 selections.

Known for his dynamic presentation, Meisel will draw upon his recently published book How Plays Work to discuss this play. A wine and cheese reception will follow the lecture.

Meisel is Brander Matthews Professor Emeritus of Dramatic Literature at Columbia University. He is the author of Shaw and the Nineteenth- Century Theater (Princeton and Oxford), Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth- Century England (Princeton), as well as numerous essays and articles on drama and the visual arts. He has been the recipient of two Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships, an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, residential fellowships at the National Humanities Center, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (Edinburgh); and of awards from the American Philosophical Society and the Huntington Library among others. In 2003 he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching at Columbia.

This is a Haldane School Foundation (HSF) fundraiser. Suggested donation: $20 for adults and $10 for students (high school or older. No young children allowed). All proceeds benefit the HSF. For tickets contact: Felice Ramella: felice.ramella@ gmail.com or 265-3884.