Shakespeare's a springboard for Claire Holden Rothman in Lear's Shadow

In the summer of 2011, Claire Holden Rothman had just completed the first draft of what was to be her second novel, the Governor General’s Award-shortlisted My October. Exhausted and at loose ends, she found the closest thing to running away and joining the circus: serving as assistant stage manager for Montreal-based Repercussion Theatre’s summertime production of Macbeth.For Rothman, who had never done anything like it, the experience was more than an immersive entrée into t