Staging Shakespeare

We ask theater artists across the country to tell us why it isn’t.

Sometimes it seems like January and February drag on forever. Thankfully, in 2023, there’s lots of thrilling theater to keep our spirits up. Here’s our round-up of performances from our theater partners across the United States this winter.

In this bilingual Hamlet, a Black and Latinx prince has his sense of identity fractured by the loss of his Black father.

We talk to scholar Fiona Ritchie, whose new book, Shakespeare in the Theatre: Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble, details their rise to fame.

This month, Shakespeare theaters across the country are getting ready for the holidays with stories of Scrooge-i-ness defeated. Even Malvolio learns a lesson!

Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero Santos write about stage adaptations of “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” that engage with Día de los Muertos traditions, reframing Shakespeare’s meditations on life and death according to Indigenous and Latinx worldviews.

Sir Ian McKellen tells us about some of his most famous roles: playing Macbeth opposite Dame Judi Dench, King Richard III with a screenplay he co-wrote, and Gandalf the Grey in The Lord of the Rings films.

King John (2022): Jessika D. Williams in “King John,” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Photo by Jenny Graham. The fall harvest is ready, and this year, we’ve got a bumper crop of Shakespeare plays! If you’re in the mood for…

Sir Ian McKellen played Hamlet in his thirties, and again in his eighties. He gives us his take on the Melancholy Dane.

Adams talks with host Barbara Bogaev about how he turned a five-act play into a two-act opera—which scenes got the hook, new lines written in the style of the Bard, and what Shakespeare may have thought of the play’s characters.