"In both 'Rosaline,' a charming teen romcom streaming on Hulu, and '& Juliet,' a splashy new musical making its Broadway debut this week, Shakespeare’s tragedy becomes a surprising springboard for music, comedy, and investigations into narrative ownership," writes Austin Tichenor.
“Worthy service": The Tempest-uousness of The White Lotus
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Austin Tichenor
HBO's Emmy-winning "The White Lotus" transforms Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" into a darkly funny satire of the hospitality industry, writes Austin Tichenor.
Adapting Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra' for opera
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Lucia Scheckner
Get an insider's look at adapting a Shakespeare play for opera with this blog post by the dramaturg and libretto consultant for the new John Adams opera of "Antony and Cleopatra."
Sometimes the old tropes are the best tropes: Shakespeare and Our Flag Means Death
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Melissa Rohrer
Melissa Rohrer explores how "Our Flag Means Death," a show inspired by the true story of the early 18th-century "Gentleman Pirate" Stede Bonnet, draws on character types and narratives that Shakespeare used frequently across many of his plays, while breathing new life into Shakespeare's favorite tropes.
John, Paul, Pyramus, and Thisbe: The Beatles performing Shakespeare
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Daniel Blank
Did you know that the Beatles once performed the “Pyramus and Thisbe” scene from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night’s Dream"? Although they mainly stick to Shakespeare’s script, the moments when they play with the text stand out.
Nathan the Wise: An 18th-century German counterpoint to Shakespeare’s Shylock
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Michele Osherow
"Nathan the Wise" and "The Merchant of Venice" are very different works, though religious tension is a subject in each, as is the potential for love and loss, wealth and poverty, bloodshed and peace. But it is the character of the Jew featured in each text that most causes scholars to focus on the plays' differences.
Actors taking on tyrants: Ernst Lubitsch’s 'To Be or Not to Be'
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Author
Austin Tichenor
A Polish acting troupe outwits the Nazis using Shakespeare codes and theatrical smarts in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 film "To Be or Not to Be," an audacious comedy filmed as Hitler was devastating Europe. Almost the definition of a joke told too soon, the movie succeeds — and is still vital, 80 years later — by finding the tonal sweet spot between fanciful comedy and grim reality, and by presenting Shakespeare as the ultimate plea for humanity.
