I’m going to be running a Shakespeare course for my kids and some others from the homeschool association this year. We’ll start with “Richard II” and plow through the Wars of the Roses until we crash and burn with “Richard III.” Fun times!
Nothing builds your verbal SAT score like Shakespeare study.
Here’s my own personal opinion... Shakespeare can be pretty obscure and boring if one tries to sit down and read it. I didn’t really learn to love Shakespeare until I started watching all the old performances of it. I say “old” and mean the Royal Shakespeare Company which did most of the plays back in the 70s. Derek Jacobi and Alan Rickman were two of the regulars. My favorite A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the 1935 version starring Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland, and James Cagney. It gets a bit tedious towards the end but generally is wonderful. I also have listened to a lot of the dramatizations. Actually, I have started doing something similar with the Bible. As I said, the first two times through it I listened - to Max McLean. Now I don’t but I do read certain passages out loud. If you read it as a family it sounds like you do too. Much more powerful since most of it was oral tradition and even in the NT the letters and stories were read over and over.
Finally, I recommend two books that really got me going about Shakespeare - both by Joseph Pearce - The Quest for Shakespeare and Through Shakespeare’s Eyes. We should have a Shakespeare ping list on freepers.