Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856 to 1950) — known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw — is often quoted as making at least two most memorable statements. First, “Life isn’t about finding yourself; life is about creating yourself.” Second, “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and, at last, you create what you will.” The man in our course spotlight began his writing career as a critic, reviewing music. Then, he branched out and became a theater critic. He must have been disappointed with his contemporary playwrights because he began writing his own dramatic works in the late 1800s. Many consider Shaw’s body of work to be second only to Shakespeare, possessing a deep love of language, high comedy, and social consciousness. Let us explore those claims in a study of his successful plays: Arms and the Man (1894), Major Barbara (1905), and Misalliance (1909).
Instructor Joseph Coté has been an amateur and professional actor for 40 years, creating more than 30 leading or featured roles in plays by such playwrights as Shaw, Shakespeare, Wilde, Sheridan, O'Neill, Chekhov, Albee, Brecht and Tennessee Williams. His actor training has included work with mentor John Broome, the late esteemed director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also studied with Robert Brustein at Boston’s American Repertory Theater and Jerome Kilty at San Diego’s Old Globe. Joseph has performed with Shakespeare Festivals in Indiana, Massachusetts, Idaho, Colorado and California. In 1984 his solo portrayal of 1944 Swedish diplomat to Budapest, Raoul Wallenberg, who saved over 100,000 Jews in the Holocaust, toured Hungary and Poland including performances at Auschwitz. Since 2019 Joseph has led more than 40 popular Shakespeare “exploration” courses and single master classes with the Coastal and Midcoast Senior Colleges focusing on Elizabethan and Jacobean theater with a focus on the journey of a single character through a single play within the greater landscape of the play in the spotlight. Joseph continues now to turn his attentions to the Edwardian and early Windsor era with a trio of courses featuring the plays of Oscar Wilde (Spring 2024), George Bernard Shaw (Autumn 2024) and Noel Coward (Spring 2025). Joseph currently serves on the CSC Activities Committee.