Inspired by Shakespeare

We’re previewing fall 2026’s new Shakespeare projects and there’s a lot to look forward to—from film to literature to opera and dance, and, of course, the theater.

How do you write a “complete” life of Shakespeare when very little complete information about his life exists? Paul Menzer manages to do just that—while throwing some “wobbles into the orbit” of well-trenched folk wisdom.

From a re-imagining of The Tempest set in a Houston school gym to Macbeth’s Weird Sisters practicing brujería, The Bard in the Borderlands compiles fantastic transformations of Shakespeare by Chicanx and Indigenous playwrights.

Scholar Paul Menzer remembers Dolly Parton (1946–2026) and the Shakespeare play that inspired her as a singer-songwriter.

Why is it important for lawyers to brush up their Shakespeare? University of Michigan Law professor and author Len Niehoff discusses what Shakespeare can teach lawyers about looking at problems from every possible angle.

As he wraps up his final season as Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival, Antoni Cimolino discusses revisiting The Tempest, the power of forgiveness, and the “rough magic” that makes theater possible.

Shakespeare’s plays—and plays and musicals inspired by him—are always a feature of the Edinburgh Fringe, the world’s largest performing arts festival. Austin Tichenor shares some of the 40 productions playing in Scotland this August.

When scholar and Everyday Shakespeare host Caroline Bicks gained unprecedented access to Stephen King’s personal archives, she discovered that the Bard of Avon and the King of Horror have more in common than you might think.

She appears in four of Shakespeare’s plays and speaks the most lines of any of his female characters. Authors Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern shine the spotlight on Margaret of Anjou, Shakespeare’s most deliciously complex anti-heroine.

60 years after the premiere of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, a new stage comedy is using Stoppard’s absurdist template to explore the fears and struggles of the two main clowns from Much Ado About Nothing.

In 2004, Barbie released two Shakespeare-inspired dolls for their Classic Ballet series: the fairy queen Titania from the 1962 ballet adaptation of Mendelssohn’s score for Midsummer and Juliet from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet 1940 ballet.

Shakespeare never attended university, but his plays have inspired generations of scholars. They’re also filled with learned characters. Sean Keilen shares what Shakespeare’s fictional intellectuals can teach us about the purpose of scholarship.