Twice the Mackers

I've been in a sort of Macbeth maelstrom lately. For one of my final assignments for RT Book Reviews, I talk to Shakespeare scholar turned thriller writer Jennifer Lee Carrell about her new novel Haunt Me Still, in which a celebrated Shakespearean director goes on a quest to undercover a centuries-old manuscript of the cursed Scottish play. (Have to admit I prefer the U.K. title, The Shakespeare Curse, though not her billing as "J.L. Carrell." So they didn't think British readers would be turned off by a book with "Shakespeare" in the title unless it was written by a woman?)

And in the current Time Out New York, I interview Bill Cain, who co-created a short-lived TV series that I loved, Nothing Sacred, and is the author of Equivocation, now at Manhattan Theatre Club, a play about Shakespeare, the Gunpowder Plot, recent American politics and Macbeth. I look forward to seeing the play, which I've only had a chance to read, especially now that I've seen production shots, like the one above, that remind me of the John Doyle Sweeney Todd. And I owe a shout-out to the guy who first told me about Equivocation a year ago. His enthusiasm for the play was infectious.