Shakespeare musicals

Shakespeare’s poetry, plots, and characters have inspired dozens of musicals, as well as numerous comic songs and even special cameos. Austin Tichenor explores the musical theater that keeps us humming and brushing up our Shakespeare.

Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is a layering of theatrical devices, a Hollywood riff on both a famous musical and a Shakespearean story for 21st-century audiences.

Sixty years old this week, the 1961 movie West Side Story, based on the acclaimed Broadway musical inspired by Romeo and Juliet, also became a de facto representation of US Latinx in musicals for many years.

While Shakespeare musicals borrowed plots, characters, and situations from England’s best-known poet, they remained essentially “American.”