Adapted Shakespeare

Newsworthy!

Imagine the marriage of Madonna and Boy George, musically that is, with Joan Jett and Foreigner, as well as MASH mating with The Muppets, with a few Ghostbusters thrown in for good measure. Sounds crazy, no, or just ingenious when it's the brain child of Annie DiMartino, Long Wharf Theatre's unique Director of Education. Oh, and I forgot the best part. All of the above are integral players in a comic tale by the Bard himself, William Shakespeare.

Bonnie K. Goldberg
Shaking Up Shakespeare in Merry Musical
DiMartino makes this look easy, but she has guidelines. “I always use Shakespeare’s play as the base, only changing simple words like ‘him’ to ‘her.’ In terms of the longer speeches, I chose to cut out repetitive sections in order to keep the action of the play moving forward,” she says.A narrator lays out the plotline, which the prologue song’s lyrics further emphasize: “Some nights I wish this would all end,” their voices sing, “because I could use some friends.”

Donna Doherty
New Haven Register
DiMartino said she concentrated on making sure the familiar lines were in there, and came up with the idea of the play having a heartbeat -- a drummer will replicate the rhythms of the characters' hearts in relation to moments in the play.

Donna Doherty
Register Arts Editor

Romeo and Juliet