Curated from the first four volumes of Peter Lang's Playing Shakespeare's Characters series, this omnibus edition selects the most practical essays for actors and directors wanting to play and produce Shakespeare's plays. The dozen contributors in this volume explore ways to play Shakespeare's lovers, villains, monarch, madmen, rebels, and tyrants. It gives critical guidance for directors and producers wanting to stage Shakespeare in the age of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. The book is a valuable companion for students, actors, directors, and designers who want insight into playing Shakespeare today.

Playing Shakespeare's Rebels and Tyrants is the fourth volume in the Peter Lang series, Playing Shakespeare's Characters. As in the previous volumes, a broad range of contributors (actors, directors, scholars, educators, etc.) analyze the concepts of rebellion, tyranny, leadership, empathy with not only references to Elizabethan and Jacobean studies, but also to Donald Trump, the social justice movement, and the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Shakespeare's rebels occupy space in both the personal and political, and often quickly turn from rebel to tyrant once in power. How can Shakespeare's text inform current conversations about race, equity, representation, rebellion and tyranny? Who gets to define the power dynamics in Shakespeare's plays? This volume looks at the Henrys, Hotspurs, Richards, Lears, Brutuses and Caesars, as well as the Juliets, Rosalinds and Cordelias who make up the panoply of Shakespeares rebels and tyrants.

In an era of Twitter and televised therapy, it may seem that classic theatre has little place in contemporary society. Accustomed to the indulgences of a celebrity-driven culture, how can modern audiences understand and interpret classic works of drama? In Tragedy in the Age of Oprah: Essays on Five Great Plays, Louis Fantasia provides a provocative examination of the relationship between popular culture and classical tragedy. Making a persuasive argument for the lessons tragedy has to offer today's audiences, Fantasia examines five enduring works of theatre: Euripides' Medea, William Shakespeare's King Lear, Jean Racine's Phedre, Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. Fantasia discusses in detail each of these plays, framing them in a contemporary context that explores the suffering, responsibility, and identity that tragedy advocates. Each play is presented as an engaging, powerful encounter for the reader, recreating as closely as possible the impact of a great performance. A unique look at the role classical theatre can and should play in contemporary society, these essays reveal the lessons great plays have to teach us about ourselves. Directed toward theatre professionals and students, Tragedy in the Age of Oprah will also resonate with anyone interested in theatre, literature, and cultural studies.

Talking Shakespeare is a collection of essays on Shakespeare's plays and politics and their impact in the world today. Originally given as provocative talks on Shakespeare at some of the most prestigious universities, conferences, and theatres around the world, they reflect on the author's more than thirty-year career as a producer, director and educator. The essays provide a unique and personal look into multiple aspects of Shakespeare's world-and ours.

Fantasia has developed a pragmatic and American performance technique. Instant Shakespeare should allow performers, directors and teachers of all cultures and levels of experience to demystify Shakespeare and perform his texts in ways that are clear, fresh and unpretentious.

The essays in Playing Shakespeare's Villains trouble our assumptions of what-and who-constitutes "villainy" in Shakespeare's works, through probing and provocative analyses of the murky moral logics at play in the Bard's oeuvre. Shakespeare spreads before us a panoply of evil, villainy, and amorality-of characters doing bad things for good reasons, bad things for bad reasons, and bad things for no reason at all. How does Shakespeare handle culpability and consequence? How much does he justify his villains' actions? How much do we enjoy watching people get away with murder and mayhem? What are we to make of the moral universe that Shakesperare presents: a universe in which some villains are punished and others seem to be rewarded; where mischief can quickly turn violent; and where an entire world can be brought down by someone's willful insistence on having one's way? Questions like these animate the discussions in this lively volume, the second in the Playing Shakespeare's Characters series.

Playing Shakespeare's Lovers examines Shakespeare's romantic characters from multiple perspectives. Contributing actors, directors, educators and scholars bring diverse and wide-ranging insights into the motives, context, history and challenges of performing Shakespeare's "infinite variety" of lovers. The volume begins with an introductory essay, followed by brief essays and interviews, on various characters within the world of Shakespeare's lovers.