This has almost certainly been done before, but I’ve never seen them – and that’s saying something, as I actively hunt out this stuff. How about a set of Shakespeare cards? Just like baseball cards, only every card is a character from the play. You get some basic stats about who she was and what she’s famous for (or, barring fame, why she’s in the play at all). There could be tragedy packs and comedy packs, or group by play. I’m trying to think of a game that you could play with them, to make it interesting, but haven’t come up with anything yet. I think it would be a really interesting challenge, though, for an artist to come up with a depiction of, oh, every single Shakespearean character.
You seen woot's Shakespeare A-Z shirt? Real funny drawings (except Hamlet is absolutely NOT a crybaby, I'm rather sick of that depiction). http://shirt.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13400
You know, actually, I hadn't. I knew about the contest but the way they run it, where there's only a small window to even know about the existence of each shirt let alone buy it, takes too much attention.
The shirt's a cute idea, some neat depictions, some cheapouts. Goodfellow for G? Really? How about Gloucester? He would have been fun to depict. Goneril? Ghost, Guildenstern?
If you want to make a game out of them, the Histories might lend themselves to that more easily, because there's so much fighting and some clearly defined factions (French, English, York, Lancaster). Characters could have their own cards (Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York; Richard "Kingmaker" Neville, Earl of Warwick) and some could have multiple versions to reflect their different titles (so there'd be a Richard, Duke of Gloucester card and a King Richard III card.) Famous moments and speeches could have their own representative cards that give some kind of bonus ("My Kingdom For a Horse: discard your hand to search your deck for Steed card. Shuffle your deck.") I think it could be pretty cool.
I like Alexi's idea, of having cards for events as well as for characters. But I wouldn't want to limit it to histories. Maybe there could be several goals, and accomplishing one is enough to win? And the goals could be things that happen a lot in Shakespeare, such as: kill the king; conquer France; marry some chick you don't even know but claim to be in love with; and so on. Just my two cents.