All Star I Family Conference
July 2 – 9, 2023: A Midsummer Night’s Daydream
Registration Opens January 15, 2023
Chairs: Ray and April Castoldi
Each year, the All Star One conference begins about a week after the summer solstice. So we’ll reflect on this mysterious seasonal change, the moment when summer is begins, and yet the hours of daylight immediately begin to diminish. This also ties in with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” one of the works of William Shakespeare. Or is it? Our guest speaker, Dr. Earl Showerman (April’s uncle), will lead us through a fascinating exploration of the “Shakespeare Authorship Question,” which some call the greatest literary mystery of all time.
Speaker of the Week: Dr. Earl Showerman
Earl Showerman graduated from Harvard College and the University of Michigan Medical School, and practiced emergency medicine in southern Oregon for 30 years. After retiring in 2003, he enrolled at Southern Oregon University (SOU) to study Shakespeare. Over the past two decades he has presented and published scholarly papers on a variety of topics including the Greek dramatic sources of Hamlet, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Much Ado about Nothing, Timon of Athens, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2012, he presented the keynote address on the playwright’s medical knowledge at the Shakespearean Authorship Trust Conference in London. Over the past decade he has taught a series of courses on Shakespeare and the authorship question at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at SOU, and is the author of a chapter on Shakespeare’s medical knowledge in Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? Exposing an Industry in Denial (2013), and contributed three topics to Know-It-All Shakespeare (2017), edited by Ros Barber. He is the executive producer of the first collection of songs related to Edward de Vere, My Lord of Oxenford’s Mask, by the lute duet Mignarda (2006). He was recently elected to the office of President of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship.
Minister of the Week: Rev. Nancy Wood
All Star 1 is a family conference that emphasizes intellectual, musical, and artistic pursuits with lots of time for intergenerational fun. We have many multi-generational families who return year after year, but always welcome new people to our one week conference in July on Star Island in New Hampshire.
A day at All Star I starts with a polar bear dip (fortunately optional) and ends with evening chapel often followed by some late night music. In between, are the morning lecture on the week’s topic, morning and afternoon children’s programs, talks-on-the-rocks, art on the porch or in the barn, and plenty of time for chatting in the rocking chairs on the porch and quiet time on the rocks. However, while the day is full of activities, what and how much you chose to do is up to you.
The heart of our community are the children who involved in morning and afternoon classes and the adults rejoice in watching the trust walks, the Children’s Stunt Show, and the infamous Great People Hunt. There are clenched teeth all around as the community comes together to see if the Junior Teens’ handmade boat will make it to Smuttynose and back!
Join us for a week of conversation, laughter, cherished traditions, and a few sparkling new ways to remind us why Star is truly our Spirit’s Home.
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Star Island Sunset Camera
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