Once wrote (in high school) Julius Cesare set in modern Chicago (the politics were pretty spot-on)
That’s not much of a stretch, is it? 
I think placing it in '30s Germany is a bad idea. As it is, people have more sympathy for Shylock than they should. Contrasting him with Nazis would make him look like a hero, which is completely wrong for the play. I’m still impressed that my high school managed to not make Shylock a sympathetic character while still showing the others as the mean-spirited creeps they are.
From what I remember of the movie, it’s an extremely loose interpretation. I’d love to see someone do an interesting filmed Tempest - and give Patrick Stewart the lead, dammit, I didn’t see him when he did it onstage and the universe owes me.
Me too.
I’m playing it for laughs. I actually wrote it once already - it was my and my best friends’ joint project for our senior year English final - but I’m editing it to take out a couple of in-jokes and make it suitable for performance by a real acting troupe on a stage. I’m going to try to sucker a community college crew into doing it.
My teen sister is working on a rap version of Caesar. An excerpt:
::a soothsayer approaches Caesar.::
Soothsayer: Yo J-Ceazy I gots to tell you bitch, you off da heezy
But betta watch yaself March fiftweezy
All of yo boyz gone get you 'cept fo Antony
Shit…I just revealed da plot of act three…
What, not Et Tu, Muthafucka?
Yeah, this is what I meant about full-text – I already knew about Forbidden Planet (or that dreadful version they did on TV a few years back).
(Re Patrick Stewart as Prospero: Personally, I’m embittered because I didn’t get to see Derek Jacobi do the part at the Old Vic…)
Didn’t see the Forbidden Planet remake. The original was one of the first movies I can remember seeing, though. That’d be interesting to check out again.
The “Shakespeare in the corporate world” thing is started to get old… in a recent Shakespeare class, we were asked to design adaptations of Midsummer, and about half of them were set this way.
Tell me about it. I’m just about to go into rehearsals for a “corporate” Othello, after having seen a corporate Midsummer, Julius Caeser and MacBeth. Be assured the corporate Othello is not my idea.
Oh, I was unclear – the recent Tempest I’m talking about doesn’t have anything to do with Forbidden Planet. I was thinking of the Civil War-era version that aired a few years back, with Peter Fonda…
Leechboy, who are you playing in Othello?
Oh, I get it now. I didn’t see that version, but it sounded kinda lame. People these days seem to be doing to Caliban what history has done to Shylock. 
I’ll be playing Iago. Though I’m a bit disappointed, because the director’s adaption has removed all of Iago’s reasoning.
Anyone see Scotland, PA? It was Macbeth set in 60’s Pennsylvania… I thought it was great…
There was also the version of Macbeth put on by strippers in Seminole County, FL after the county banned nude dancing but couldn’t ban nude artistic expression… I hear the scene with the witches over the pot included some lesbian kissing and touching…An improvement over the original!
tramp- the stripper Macbeth was featured on an HBO Real Sex episode…
so I heard G
Nobody’s gonna build upon my TITUS ANDRONICUS set in a high school?
OK- how about a Shakespearean ham actor fakes his death & then exacts
Bard-like vengeance upon the critics who dissed him?
Now THAT would be a movie! Too bad Vincent Price is departed- that would have been wonderful for him… and maybe there could be parts for Diana Riggs & Robert Morley too!
First, find someone who has a clue what it’s about. Not one of the better known plays.
Maybe you should try to make a version of it about a miserly transsexual - Tightarse Androgynous.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged rather made this joke. (It has Titus Androgynous host a cooking show.)
Boo. What’s he done?
Titus Andronicus set in a highschool?? I guess with what goes on in highschools these days, why not? Still, it would be quite distubing…not that the play isn’t gory and disturbing on its own, but still!
I know Taming of the Shrew was adapted into the film Ten Things I Hate About You, but I would love to do a stage adaptation of Shrew with a BDSM theme. I think the play totally fits into the sub/dom lifestyle. I’m considering actually staging a 60 to 90 minute adaptation of it that way for my local Fringe Festival next summer. It would be somewhat difficult and expensive to costume though…
The director’s adaption has removed all of Iago’s reasoning? So he does all the machinations because… well, just because he can? Iago as by Puck?
The Director wants the focus to be on Othello and Desdemona relationship. He views the play as a parable about trust in marriage.
Is that a ‘yes’ to DeVena’s question? Sheesh. Oh well, it’s still playing Iago. Could be worse…
I don’t know; I don’t recall Iago’s last name being Farquhar-Yusuf.