How to Stop Time

Tom, exhausted from lack of sleep, stands before his class trying to teach about Elizabethan England. He makes eye contact with Anton and asks if he knows anyone from that time. Anton mentions Shakespeare and refers to the play Henry IV, Part 1, which he is reading in English class. Tom expands on the idea that Shakespeare was an actual person—a writer, businessman, networker, and producer. Tom wishes he could explain how he knew the man and remembers his bad breath.

With winter approaching and summer crowds thinning, Tom looks for work as an inn musician. The Pembroke Men, a band of musicians, own the market on entertaining. Hearing that Tom is looking for a job, one of them approaches him. Wolstan the Tree, a giant man who played the fiddle, grabs Tom by the neck and slams him against a wall. A nearby prostitute named Elsa tells him to back off and let Tom be. Wolstan demands Tom stay away from the inns in that neighborhood and grabs Tom’s lute and threatens to break it. A “deep theatrical kind of voice” shouts for him to stop (144). Elsa recognizes Richard Burbage, London’s most famous actor. He is accompanied by actor Will Kemp and the playwright William Shakespeare.