Born With Teeth, Juliet & Romeo, and Owain & Henry
Plus: What "Timon of Athens" really needs is a love triangle
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The brilliant Liz Duffy Adams’ Born With Teeth is going up on the West End featuring Ncuti Gatwa as Marlowe and Edward Bluemel as Shakespeare.2
Who the %$#& thought adding a love triangle to Timon of Athens was a good idea? (Thomas Shadwell, that’s who.)
The feature musical “Juliet & Romeo” released a new trailer featuring Derek Jacobi, Rebel Wilson, and Jason Isaacs in full Alan-Rickman-as-Sheriff-of-Nottingham mode.3
Michael Sheen will play Owen Glendower (sorry, Owain Glyndŵr) in a new play.
Sheen said the play, written in blank verse by the Welsh playwright Gary Owen, was a “stonking epic”, challenging the depiction of Shakespeare’s unflattering picture of Glyndŵr in his Henry IV plays.
King Charles III is visiting Rome, what shall we perform? Why, the death of Desdemona of course! In a 19th century slaughterhouse-turned-theater.4
Sir Simon Russell Beale on Titus: “There’s a drain round the side of the stage.”5
In case the phrase “solemn mockery” hit your ears funny this week, it is also a line in William Henry Ireland’s terrible/forged Shakespeare play Vortigern.
Behind the scenes at Drunk Shakespeare in DC.
“I was like, ‘That is exactly what I want to do,’ she says. ‘That’s basically what I did in college. I drank, and I did Shakespeare.’”
And here I was thinking that the Curtain Theatre was named for theatre curtains. “The old curtain wall of Holywell Priory” was not on my list.
Yes, the Globe’s Wild West Romeo and Juliet will have a hoedown. (because)
Related: John Wayne’s (two) Taming adaptations. (sortof)
“Othello is Shakespeare’s only major work in which the hero and antihero are given equal weight.” (Discuss.)
“I’d take my shirt off and see camera flashes from the audience…There was something quite seedy about that.”7
The Public is looking for a “distractingly handsome” ensemble member for Twelfth Night.
International Roundup: Australia does the Histories, an Irish Shakespeare/Synge rep, and teaching Shakespeare in New Zealand.9
Arguments for and against “White Lotus” as Shakespeare-adjacent.
Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Midsummer is inspired by the early 2000s club scene.
Recommendations
Oxford says, “screw that one guy in particular” for 500 years.
Happy Easter! Make a butter lamb or go to Greenwich and be hoisted.
Benjamin Dreyer does a deep dive on a Katharine Hepburn theater myth.
Wisconsin has some of the lowest per-capita funding for the arts. Also grilled cheese.
Like this one.
Am I in the script’s special thanks along with many other brilliant people? Why yes, thank you for asking! Liz came to a Henry VI I did – 90 minute cuts of all three plays with the same 12 actors over three months – in a now-defunct Dr. Who-themed bar in Brooklyn. (The toilet was a TARDIS.) Is Ncuti Dr. Who? Yes. Time/Untangle/Not I.
Also a quote from “Shakespeare in Love.” Pity they couldn’t spell sexy Marlowe’s name right.
The King noted that “Nearly a third of Shakespeare’s plays were set here in Italy.”
Sir Simon also wants to play Angelo. It sounds like Sir Nicholas has dibs but get on it y’all. (While we’re on dream casting, I’m still waiting for Tom Hollander as Richard III.)
This article has my new favorite “Oberon being sick of Puck’s s&#%” photo. (vs. Oberon being very into Puck’s s&#%.)
1. I think I caught a second SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE quote (or at least paraphrase) in that trailer for JULIET & ROMEO. "It takes a mother to know" is very similar to a line Judi Dench has as Elizabeth, "It takes a woman to know."
2. Call me "against" Shakespeare parallels in season 3 of WHITE LOTUS...though I certainly saw them in season 1 (https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/tempest-the-white-lotus/ ) and season 2 (https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/shakespeare-the-white-lotus-season-two/ ).