Peter Marks, theatre critic for the Washington Post, is surviving theatre deprivation by reading Andrew McConnell Scott’s WHAT BLEST GENIUS. Marks writes: “Stott, an English professor at the University of Southern California, takes us to Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1769, where the celebrated actor David Garrick staged a lavish multiday publicity event to fete the playwright who made him famous. The whole thing was a bit of debacle, as Stott’s witty account reveals. But it was also the turning point for the world’s wholehearted embrace of theater’s greatest writer.” W.W. Norton & Company published the book on April 2, 2019.