Staging Shakespeare

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.

Find out what’s onstage at a Shakespeare theater near you in September.

“Nowhere does Shakespeare attend more to theatrical enterprise and potential than in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” writes Michele Osherow, Folger Theatre’s resident dramaturg. “It makes the play irresistible to those who practice theatre and to those who crave its incomparable…

Austin Tichenor explores small-cast Shakespeare and the artistic possibilities of a few performers playing multiple roles.

Lolita Chakrabarti shares historical context about pioneering 19th-century Black actor Ira Aldridge, the subject of her play Red Velvet, including a notable detail about his funeral in Poland which she learned after she’d written the play.

Find out what’s onstage at Shakespeare theaters across the United States this summer.

Director Sam Gold shares what he loves most about Macbeth, why it stands out from other Shakespeare tragedies he’s directed, and how his ideas about the play changed over time.

Hamlet sings! A new opera version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is onstage now at the Metropolitan Opera, with tenor Allan Clayton resuming the title role that he played for the opera’s world premiere at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2017. Read our…

Jacob Ming-Trent shares a favorite moment from his Shakespeare in the Park performance as Falstaff in “Merry Wives,” which premieres on PBS’s Great Performances May 20.

Read our round-up of May performances from Shakespeare theaters across the country.

April 23 is Shakespeare’s birthday, and this month offers a plethora of ways to celebrate!