William Shakespeare

Latest Articles

Tina Packer explains the Bard for you

Will power
Tina Packer has been in bed with Shakespeare for at least 40 years.
By CAROLYN CLAY | October 25, 2011

Review: Much Ado in World War 2

Monmouth shifts centuries, to powerful effect
Men return from war, and attentions turn to love: It's a timeless order, and so it is with the witty Sicilians of Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing .
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | July 13, 2011

The Bard goes green

Shakespeare's Enchanted World
Hark ye, eco-warriors, bearers of the canvas tote! Today's greenies could learn a thing or two from a country-bred Englishman who lived before automobiles and oil spills — William Shakespeare.
By AMY LITTLEFIELD | May 25, 2011

Review: CTC's minimalist Romeo and Juliet

An amusing tragedy
Ah, young love. So sweet, so unguarded, so unwise. Parents can caution the younger of their teenagers all they want, but William Shakespeare has undermined their efforts by promoting the blissful aspect in Romeo and Juliet . Yes, it's a tragedy and they die at the end, but that's a minor annoyance next to their joy.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 23, 2011

Review: The Tempest

Taymor fails to cast a spell
There are so many ways to stage The Tempest. Shakespeare's last and strangest play can be a meditation on aging, an exploration of S&M power dynamics, a critique of Western imperialism.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM | February 24, 2011

Brown's theater juggernaut fires up again

Playtime
The Brown/Trinity Repertory Theatre, a summer program that cultivates promising young playwrights, is set to launch this year's slate of three plays on July 7. Expectations are high.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 30, 2010

Brown's theater juggernaut fires up again

Save the pool

Plans to alter the magnificent reflecting pool at the Christian Science Center should not be allowed
Noble architecture makes Boston a living work of art. Visitors flock to view Bulfinch's State House, Richardson's Trinity Church, and McKim's Copley Square Library, to name just the obvious.
By EDITORIAL | June 23, 2010

It’s good to be king

TRIST takes Henry VIII outdoors
After being out of the local theater scene for a couple of decades, the Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater (TRIST) is back, staging an outdoor production of Henry VIII at the Roger Williams National Memorial Park, on North Main Street in Providence, through June 26.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 15, 2010

Pure Poetry

The Belle of Amherst is a moving experience
Between the deep-rooted American penchant for individualism and the suffragette and feminist movements, poet Emily Dickinson was bound to enter the literary canon.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 09, 2010

Play by play: June 4, 2010

Theater listings, week of June 4, 2010
Theater listings, week of June 4, 2010
By JEFFREY GANTZ | June 03, 2010

Play by play: May 28, 2010

Theater listings, May 28, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 27, 2010

Reversal of fortunes

Timon of Athens from Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Prelude to a Kiss from the Huntington
Timon of Athens is Shakespeare’s least characteristic tragedy, and the toughest to pull off.
By STEVE VINEBERG | May 25, 2010

Play by Play: May 21, 2010

Theater listings, May 21, 2010
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 19, 2010

We band of brothers

Young actors bring a Spartan production of Henry V to the Apohadion
This is the first independent production by the group of five friends who met at Boston’s Emerson College, where they helmed incarnations of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet and Sam Shepard’s True West .
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | May 19, 2010

More Bard, another park

Acorn takes Shakespeare to the Riverbank
Just as fiddleheads and lilacs sprung early this year, so have the urban-pastoral pleasures of al fresco Shakespeare.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 19, 2010

Your words are not your own

Less Otten. More Originality.
Plagiarism is a serious charge.
By AL DIAMON | May 12, 2010

Play by play: May 14, 2010

Theater listings, May 14, 2010
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | May 17, 2010

Rufus Wainwright | All Days Are Night: Songs For Lulu

Decca (2010)
Songs for Lulu features Wainwright alone at his piano — where, on previous records, the Canadian songwriter has mostly been as part of sprawling pop ensembles.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | April 21, 2010

A life on the boards

Trinity’s Fred Sullivan, Jr. hits 100
An actor who has done 100 productions at the same theater?
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 14, 2010

Midnight ramblers

Rock legend Peter Wolf serves dinner and verse to the Phoenix ’s poet .
In rock ’n’ roll, it was possible to live in Harvard Square, be a musician — a local musician — and be able to pay your rent and find restaurants where you could eat and buy food and survive, and feel that there was a sense of . . . future, with hope and opportunity.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 08, 2010

People gather to read a book about people who gather to read a book

‘One Book. One State. Literally’
Now in its eighth year, Reading Across Rhode Island is a three-month project of the Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library. Its goal is to encourage readers across the state to read the same book and to engage in lively discussions about their reading.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | March 31, 2010

Taking aim

A play within a play in Stoppard’s Hound
Sometimes even playwrights just wanna have fun.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 31, 2010

Moral surgery

Becky Shaw at the Huntington; Entertaining Mr. Sloane at the Publick; Othello at Actors' Shakespeare Project
You know upon meeting Becky Shaw that you're in the presence of a smart, snappy writer. But you picture playwright Gina Gionfriddo as someone more akin to Theresa Rebeck than William Makepeace Thackeray.
By CAROLYN CLAY | March 24, 2010

Variety shows

Trailer parks, baseball curses, mad scientists, and Darwin
There's plenty more than we can fit in, but here's a sampling of the broad range covered on Boston stages this spring, from new works to Shakespeare and Mel Brooks.
By MADDY MYERS | March 12, 2010

Play by Play: March 5, 2010

Theater listings, March 5, 2010
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | March 03, 2010

The Big Hurt: Leisurely stroll through Billboard’s ‘Heatseekers’

Who charted?
A year into this whole "Who Charted" thing and I'm finally getting to the most exciting stuff.
By DAVID THORPE | February 23, 2010

Play by play, February 26, 2010

Theater listings, week of February 26, 2010
Boston's weekly theater listings
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 24, 2010

Play by play: February 19, 2010

Theatre listings, week of February 19, 2010
Boston's weekly theater schedule
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 17, 2010

Present laughter

Trinity throws a Twelfth Night party
Director Brian McEleney returns to Trinity Repertory Company for a raucous Twelfth Night that hums with energy, drollery, and a makeshift score that meshes Shakespearean ditty with such seasonal fripperies as "Auld Lang Syne" and the Mariah Carey hit "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
By CAROLYN CLAY | February 10, 2010