United States – MIT Global Shakespeares

Dream of Hamlet

Hulagu, Ayhan 2021

Dream of Hamlet is a modern interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in shadow theatre. After moving to America and settling down there, Karagoz sets up a theatre with a close friend and decides to stage Shakespeare’s immortal piece of work. When the characters of Hamlet were reincarnated in different costumes and shapes in a Karagoz performance, what appears is a colorful and robust experimental theatre full of laughter, quick-witted humor and irony. In this lively show, the Anatolian puppet theatre Karagoz, a living tradition with 700 years of history, brings a modernist approach to the British playwright Shakespeare’s signature play by reconstructing its characters and theme in an entirely different context. Read More

Moore – a Pacific Island Othello

Richter, Kepano (Stephen); Taft Mattos, Justina 2020

MOORE – a Pacific Island Othello is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello, set in the Pacific Islands at the crossroads of Race, Language, and American Empire. Directed by Justina Taft Mattos at the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s Performing Arts Center, the live-stream premiere of the production ran for 1 hour and 48 minutes at 2:00 PM and was performed in English, Japanese, Korean, and ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i on November 1st, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no physical audience in the theater space. The entire production was filmed incorporating the state of Hawaii’s COVID-19 safety protocols: masks, social distancing, and assigning “Ohana bubbles” to actors having physical contact with each other. With the impending 2020 presidential election, rising social unrest, and our present reckoning about systemic racism in the United States, we felt it was high time to revisit Othello and examine what the play means here and now in America on the 416th anniversary of the first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s play. Read More

Shakespeare in Yemen

Hazaber, Amin; Hennessey, Katherine 2018

In a land ravaged by strife and violence, actors and poets search for hope and inspiration in the words of the world’s greatest playwright. In this short documentary, Yemeni actors and actresses perform some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, and a Yemeni poet recites a qasidah inspired by a Shakespearean sonnet. Why Shakespeare? Why Yemen, and why now? Watch and find out. Read More

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Al-Shamma, James 2013

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was directed by James Al-Shamma at the University Playhouse, Texas A&M University-Commerce in Texas. The production ran for two hours and 8 minutes and was performed in English February 19-23 at 8:00 PM and February 24 at 3:00 PM, 2013. Read More

Someone Is Sleeping in My Pain: An East-West Macbeth

Roes, Michael 2001

This 2002 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is directed by German poet and director Michael Roes. He later published a novel Nah Inverness (2004), which features two diary accounts. Read More

The Tale of Lear

Suzuki, Tadashi 1988

The Tale of Lear, directed by Tadashi Suzuki whose experimental and provocative Trojan Women received critical acclaim at the 1986 Chicago International Theatre Festival Read More

The Speaker’s Progress (Twelfth Night)

Al-Bassam, Sulayman 2011

The Speaker’s Progress uses Twelfth Night as a starting point to explore events in the Middle East, transforming Shakespeare’s comedy into a satire on the decades of political inertia that have fed recent revolts across the Arab region and a daring theatrical metaphor for the mechanisms of dissent. Read More

Ur-Hamlet

Barba, Eugenio 2006

Ur-Hamlet is a multicultural project by Odin Teatret: a performance that brings together the Odin Teatret ensemble, a group of actor-dancers from Bali, Japan, Brazil, musicians from different parts of the world, and a long-term pedagogical project for young trainees from all over the world. Read More

The Tempest

Taymor, Julie 2010

In Julie Taymor’s version of ‘The Tempest,’ the gender of Prospero has been switched to Prospera. Going back to the 16th or 17th century, women practicing the magical arts of alchemy were often convicted of witchcraft. In Taymor’s version, Prospera is usurped by her brother and sent off with her four-year daughter on a ship. She ends up on an island; it’s a tabula rasa: no society, so the mother figure becomes a father figure to Miranda. This leads to the power struggle and balance between Caliban and Prospera; a struggle not about brawn, but about intellect. Read More

Macbeth

Goldberg, Andrew; Tiffany, John 2012

From the National Theatre of Scotland comes a one-man production of William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Directed by John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg, this re-imagined production is set in a psychiatric unit. This performance is approximately one hour and 45 minutes, with no intermission. Read More

World Shakespeare Festival

2012

The Globe to Globe Festival ran from 23 April to 9 June 2012 as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, itself part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad during the summer Olympic Games in London. The theme of the London Olympics opening ceremony was “Isles of Wonder”, inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Read More

Chimes At Midnight

Welles, Orson 1965

Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight is a pastiche of the Falstaff plays. The film reorganizes dialogue from these texts to reposition Falstaff (played by Welles) as a tragic hero lamenting the loss of his youth. Kenneth Rothwell explains that, as a tragic hero, Falstaff acquires a tragic flaw: “the disease of ‘not listening’” or not understanding Hal’s rhetorical language (86). Though Chimes initially received poor reviews (Anderegg 137), the film is now regarded as an insightful adaptation that explores themes of nostalgia, power, greed, ambition, language, and friendship. Read More

Much Ado About Nothing

Antoon, A.J.; Havinga, Nick 1973

This 1973 recording of the Joseph Papp produced Much Ado About Nothing was directed by A.J. Antoon and Nick Havinga and was performed at the New York Shakespeare Festival Delacorte Theater in Central Park and later at the Winter Garden on Broadway. Kathleen Widdoes and Sam Waterston star as Beatrice and Benedick. Read More

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet

Luhrmann, Baz 1996

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet is a 1996 American romantic crime tragedy film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann, co-produced by Gabriella Martinelli, and co-written by Craig Pearce. It is an adaptation and modernization of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles of two teenagers who fall in love, despite their being members of feuding families. Brian Dennehy, John Leguizamo, Pete Postlethwaite, Paul Sorvino and Diane Venora also star in supporting roles. Read More

Hamlet

Gielgud, John 1964

Richard Burton’s Hamlet is a 1964 filmed record of the Broadway production of William Shakespeare’s tragedy that played from April 9 through August 8 of that year at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Read More

Romeo and Juliet

Chen, Lincang 2008

In the Spring of 2008, visiting director Chen Lincang of the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing worked with students at the Binghamton University Theatre Department to stage a production of Romeo and Juliet. The result was a new interpretation of the play performed in English, but in the beijing opera style. Read More

Titus

Taymor, Julie 1999 | 2 Comments

Titus is a 1999 film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus, about the downfall of a Roman general, the first theatrically-released feature film adaptation of the play. Starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, it was the directorial debut of Julie Taymor, who co-produced with Jody Patton and Conchita Airoldi, and wrote the screenplay. Read More

The Taming of the Shrew

Chung, Hsing-lin Tracy 2003

The English version of Hsing-lin Tracy Chung’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew premiered April 11-12 and 15-19, 2003 at the Ace Morgen Theatre in Granville, Ohio. Read More

Romeo Must Die

Bartkowiak, Andrzej 2000 | 4 Comments

Romeo Must Die is a 2000 film about a gang war that breaks out between an African American gang and an Asian gang in Oakland, CA. The plot is similar to that of Romeo and Juliet and featured famed martial arts star Jet Li and singer Aaliyah in her first movie debut. Read More

Mississippi Masala

Nair, Mira 1991 | One Comment

Mississippi Masala is a 1991 film inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet about the interracial romance between an African American man and an Indian American woman in rural Mississippi. Read More

Tromeo and Juliet

Kaufman, Lloyd 1997

Tromeo and Juliet is a 1997 American independent transgressive romantic black comedy film and a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet from Troma Entertainment. The film was directed by Lloyd Kaufman from a screenplay by Kaufman and James Gunn, who also served as associate director. Read More

The Red Violin

Girard, François 1998

Film in which Shakespeare is cited, and a sequence is set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Read More

Tombstone

Cosmatos, George P. 1993

An excerpt from the Saint Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V is performed by Mr. Fabian, played by Billy Zane, during the film. Read More

Elsinore

Lepage, Robert 1997

Elsinore is based on Hamlet. Created and directed by Robert Lepage. Performed by Peter Darling. Sets by Carl Fillion.

Detailed performance record for this production can be found at the Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare website.

The script for Elsinore is available from this webpage.

Golden Bowl

Ivory, James 2000

An intricately plotted tale of thwarted love and betrayal, “The Golden Bowl” tells the story of an extravagantly rich American widower (Nick Nolte) and his sheltered daughter (Kate Beckinsale), both of whom marry only to discover that their respective mates, a beautiful American expatriate (Uma Thurman) and an impoverished Italian aristocrat (Jeremy Northam), are entangled with one another in a romantic intrigue of seduction and deceit. Read More

As You Like It

Branagh, Kenneth 2006

Witty, playful and utterly magical, the story is a compelling romantic adventure in which Rosalind and Orlando’s celebrated courtship is played out against a backdrop of political rivalry, banishment and exile in the Forest of Arden – set in 19th-century Japan. Read More