>

I didn’t know there was a name for it beside “visual imagery”. I read like that as well and always assumed everyone else did until recently. My wife is perfectly literate, but doesn’t enjoy reading because it is just boring words to her. I read often because it creates that movie in my head that you mentioned. Like by the end of a book I’ll have facial features assigned for the primary characters. 
It’s cool while reading but it really makes movies based on novels hard to appreciate.
The op doth protest too much, methinks. >

I bite my thumb at OP >

No, sir. I do not bite my thumb at OP, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir. >

Do you quarrel sir? >

Quarrel, sir? No, sir! >

We can't stop here! This is bat country! >

We were somewhere around Verona, on the edge of Veneto, when the Capulets began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded, maybe you should quarrel”… >

And finally there I stood face to face with the elusive Shakespeare Hunter. >

No, it's Hunter S Thompson, the S is for Shakespeare. >

I keep your head low
Shakespeare may just sick his imaginary attorney on you >

You aren't entirely wrong, and you aren't entirely right.
Shakespeare isn't outdated. He's a lot of things, but outdated isn't one of them. Some of the stories that his plays centre around fit quite perfectly with both modern issues, and modern politics. Julius Caesar and Coriolanus can be used to talk about populist politics, for one example, and the metaphors work incredibly well.
Remaking Shakespeare is very important, and very useful, because it can transform an old tradition into a reflection of our modern culture.
HOWEVER...
The way that we have taught Shakespeare for years is one that completely disengages kids from him. Yes, the language is frustrating. He has lots of endless soliloquies, and our obsession over rhyming scheme and iambic pentameter basically puts students to sleep. 
We should not spend as much time on Shakespeare as we do, and when we do focus on him, Shakespeare should be remembered as an active participation subject. Fuck Romeo and Juliet, focus on something else. The Roman plays, The Tempest, all of those have some very weird and engaging lore that surround them that is worth picking up.
Shakespeare can be rude, funny, offensive, and wild. Speeches like the 'Brutus is an honourable man' speech from Julius Caesar or characters like Caliban are really, really interesting.
All that being said...
Do not teach Shakespeare in history, for God's sakes. You'll end up teaching that Shakespeare kept a strong historical account.
He didn't. >

This is hard to write without it sounding incredibly boastful, but England does have a very strong theatrical tradition. You're never far away from a local amateur dramatics society, Thespian society or theatre company. Shakespeare is pretty much their bread and butter, and I think that given the nature of Shakespeare's plays- if you can play those roles convincingly, you are most definitely a skilled actor. 
This is why I think English actors are overrepresented in Hollywood. Case in point is Patrick Stewart, who spent decades on the Shakespeare circuit, then got the role of Captain Picard in Star Trek are figuratively blew everyone out of the water with the quality of his performance. >


You're never far away from a local amateur dramatics society, 

Ah, you've met my family >

Part of the problem is that Shakespeare is meant to be watched, not read.  Reading Shakespeare is boring.  WATCHING Shakespeare, with actors who know their roles inside and out, is breathtaking. >


Reading Shakespeare is boring.

Reading Shakespeare yourself can be boring. Listening to your 14 year old classmates, some of whom could probably barely manage The Gruffalo, attempt to read out A Midsummer Night's Dream is EXCRUCIATING >

You say excruciating, I say hilarious. >

If you're not in the AP English class, and are just stuck in the regular dumb kid English class like I was (because i was too busy playing runescape to do homework so my grades sucked, not because I couldn't read lol), it stops being funny real quick. 
Some of those kids hadn't read a book their entire lives; it was the early era of sparknotes so they really didn't have to I guess. They were basically at the same reading level as they were in kindergarten. Kids these days are glued to social media sure but at least they're reading things on them, right? They're probably reading more, even if it is just Twitter or Instagram posts or whatever, then the kids in my day. Which is kinda funny I think. >

Yeah, I was in the same sort of boat. I read books like I was drinking water, but I also got a taste of video games, and my grades went into the toilet. So I was in Dumb Kid English with dudes that could barely read the name of the school, never mind a damn sonnet or paragraph. >

My best friend and I got banned from reading aloud for more than one paragraph a day, bc one day we got sick of the dumb kids taking ten times longer, so we tagged each other back and forth instead of tagging round the circle. We read for maybe 45 minutes straight, fast as we could, switching out every time a breath would cause a pause, no room for interruption.
A year later me and a different friend got in trouble at Little Caesars orientation, bc they made us group read the employee handbook, and we pulled the same system. I'm not gonna sit and wait for seven illiterates to read thirty pages of corporate drivel. >

I had a strange tangentially-related experience in 11th grade ... my US History teacher also ran the school's Evelyn Wood Speed Reading program (which I never took because I could read quickly just fine on my own). But in the middle of this year, we were also performing The Pirates of Penzance, and I got the role of Major-General Stanley, who famously has the "I am the very model of a modern major-general" patter song. 
I got very fast at those verses, because you sorta have to. She (the teacher) heard about this, and started having me read aloud in class more. Like, a lot more. As fast as I could. For several days, I did the reading for the entire class at warp speed. She was fascinated that I seemed to be able to process it and get it out my mouth faster than many kids could read to themselves. 
But then she was very disappointed when she learned that I also subvocalize (i.e., I "hear" the words inside my head) when I read. Apparently you can't do that if you really want to unlock speed reading. >

What's it called when your eyes are seeing the words but your brain is showing you a movie created based on those words? I don't really remember reading the words. I don't remember reading the words "red car" but I can go back and replay my personal movie in my head and tell you the car is/was red.