A Shakespeare fall arts preview

With fall’s arrival, we’re previewing new Shakespeare projects, from film to literature to opera and dance. And, of course, the theater! If you’re in DC, join us for Folger Theatre’s  Measure for Measure (on stage September 22–November 1).

Discover more Shakespeare performances on the Shakespeare Theatre Association website, and if you’re in Canada, check out the Stratford Festival which has extended selected performances through November 14.

Lord of the dance

Robbie Fairchild’s Lord Chamberlain’s Men is receiving its premiere at the Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center. The work imagines the identity of the “lovely boy” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and early performances of Romeo and Juliet. From the New York Times:

Across centuries, countless people have advanced theories about the identity of the “lovely boy” to whom Shakespeare addressed hundreds of love sonnets and how he might have influenced Shakespeare’s plays. But only the actor-dancer Robbie Fairchild started his speculations while on the set of the much-derided 2019 movie version of Cats.

Between takes of that “godawful film,” Fairchild recalled recently, the great actress Judi Dench taught Shakespeare sonnets to Fairchild.

“At one point, I told her, ‘Judi, 126 of these were written about a boy,’” Fairchild said. “And she goes, ‘Oh honey, I’m not the person you ask about that. I just do what’s on the page.’”

So Fairchild asked others, consulting sources like the theater director Nicholas Hytner and the book Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare by the scholar Will Tosh. Eventually, he came up with his own idea: That the boy was an actor in Shakespeare’s troupe and that the playwright poured the pain of this forbidden love into Romeo and Juliet.
—Read the full story

Robbie Fairchild’s Players’ Lord Chamberlain’s Men
Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, Program 2 | September 24–25

A night at the opera

The first Shakespeare play that Verdi adapted for the opera, Macbeth is enjoying a new production at the Metropolitan Opera. The season opener features Lise Davidsen—the world’s reigning dramatic soprano—plays the power-mad Lady Macbeth, opposite Quinn Kelsey, following past triumphs in many of Verdi’s signature baritone roles, as the Scottish king haunted by his murderous ascent to the throne. Opera lovers across the country can enjoy the performance through The Met: Live in HD.

Verdi’s Macbeth at The Metropolitan Opera | September 22–October 20

The Met: Live in HD Macbeth screening | October 17

Good Reads

Fiction and non-fiction readers alike can curl up with new books about Shakespeare, his works, and his world.

Historian Tracy Borman’s The House of Boleyn (published August 4) weaves the dramatic history of the Boleyn family into a richly imagined novel of ambition, bloodlines, and the opulent and deadly court of Henry VIII.

Paul Menzer considers “the wonder of Shakespeare’s story” in The Complete Life of William Shakespeare: Stratford, London, and In Between (ebook, September 29; hardcover, October 29) “with the little facts we have about his life to guide us through the language and characters which define him.”

Kate Dunn, the bestselling author of Hungerstone, reimagines Hamlet with a sapphic twist in Rottenheart (October 13), a gothic horror novel where the only thing more dangerous than a family secret is a mother’s revenge.

Rory Loughnane offers an original account of Shakespeare before he achieved fame in Shakespeare at Thirty (October 20), looking at the spring of 1594 when Shakespeare turned 30 amid plague closures, censorship, social upheaval, financial insecurity, and professional uncertainty.

Shakespeare returns to Broadway

Tom Hiddleston is Benedick. Hayley Atwell is Beatrice. Two of their generation’s finest actors star in Tony winner Jamie Lloyd’s joy-fueled reinvention of Much Ado About Nothing. Described as a “big-hearted, disco-tastic party,” this giddily funny and beautifully tender battle of wits comes to Broadway after a record-breaking run in London, where it was named the “#1 Best Show of the Year” (Time Out).

Much Ado About Nothing | October 31, 2026–January 10, 2027

Coming to the movies

Elsinore is the deeply emotional and inspirational true story of Ian Charleson (1949–1990), a gifted actor who appeared in films like Chariots of Fire and Gandhi. His greatest challenge becomes his greatest triumph when, while seriously ill from AIDS, he takes over the role of Hamlet at the National Theatre replacing Daniel Day Lewis. Facing his own mortality with unflinching honesty, wit, and grace, Charleson delivers a courageous performance that becomes a source of healing and inspiration for those around him. Directed by Simon Stone and written by Stephen Beresford, the film stars Andrew Scott as Charleson, with Olivia Coleman as Margaret Johnson, Charleson’s doctor.

Focus Features Elsinore |  in select theaters November 20