The Howard County
I N
F O C U S
VOL.15, NO.9
F O R
P E O P L E
O V E R
More than 30,000 readers throughout Howard County
Back to school with the Bard
Not surprisingly, Johnson’s love of the Bard began in England, where Johnson arrived in the 1970s as a young woman. Her husband, Johnny, who was stationed there as an Air Force officer, bought her a threeinch-thick copy of The Riverside Shake-
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Hop aboard a small cruise ship to see Japan’s lesser-known coastal villages and national parks; plus, plan a road trip to Massachusetts to mark our nation’s 250th anniversary page 10
Lynne Johnson is a volunteer teacher at Howard County’s newest 50+ Center. Johnson, who has decades of teaching experience and a love of literature, teaches a free Shakespeare class.
speare, which contains every play and sonnet. Johnson was off and running. She began watching performances of the plays on the BBC, which had just promised to broadcast all of the Bard’s works over a six-year period. Later, she saw plays at the theater in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. All the while, she filled up her Riverside with mar-
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PHOTO BY EDWARD WARNER
By Edward Warner It’s that time of year again, when one’s memories turn to school days — and perhaps to that singular teacher or professor who seemed to live and breathe their subject, passing on their enthusiasm to students. Howard County resident Lynne Johnson is such a teacher. Johnson leads a Shakespeare reading group at the East Columbia 50+ Center, one of several free classes and clubs offered this fall at the county’s 50+ centers. At the same center, older adults can take baduanjin classes, which explore the ancient Chinese qigong exercise. Or they can head over to the North Laurel 50+ Center, which offers a weekly drop-in jam session for musicians. But Johnson, 75, holds the distinction of offering the only class where attendees encounter each of Shakespeare’s plays, reading the lines in round-robin fashion. In her class, no one has just one role: One student may by happenstance get only a “hark” during her turn, while another may end up reading all of Marc Anthony’s soliloquy over the slain body of Julius Caesar. Johnson’s teaching method has a way of engaging her students and showing them how relevant these plays can be in their modern lives. “I am an ambassador to Shakespeare,” she said, noting that she aims to make students aware of how relatable he is today. “It’s not some old-fashioned form of literature.”
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ginal notes in red or black that now seem to outnumber the lines on each page. Since her English sojourn, Johnson has seen every single one of Shakespeare’s plays performed, some several times. But her greatest joy has been teaching Shakespeare, which she began doing at a
ARTS & STYLE
First-time Maryland authors and old pros are featured in a new anthology of essays by women page 19
See SHAKESPEARE, page 20
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