I've spent a lot of time reading about and trying to imagine performances in Shakespeare's time recently and I keep coming back to a comment that I received regarding my December 20 post of last year. The gist of it was that Shakespeare may have incorporated comic characters into even his most intense tragedies, the Porter in Macbeth for example, to keep his great comic actors, such as Will Kempe and Robert Armin, in work. This strikes me as very likely indeed, and it has led me back to another comparison with Duke Ellington, who wrote parts with the specific personalities and talents of his leading instrumentalists in mind. It seems logical to assume that Shakespeare must have done the same. And like Ellington, who collaborated not only with his players, but with Billy Strayhorn and others throughout his career, the most important thing was always to get the work in front of audiences. I remain convinced that Ellington's career is the career that most closely resembles Shakespeare's in terms of working methods and results.