The Hamlet Musical.
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be, do not forget stay out of debt. Think twice and take this good advice from me, guard that old solvency. There’s just one other thing you have to do, to thy own self be true.
As a film Romeo and Juliet, but as a play, a local girl in my home town had gone away to college about 60 miles away and her freshman year she had the Portia role in Merchant of Venice. Our high school speech teacher loaded all of his theater students in a bus and took us to it. I was dreading it, but I was really impressed. The thing really worked. I really understood Shylock and the whole situation. I really became a fan of the Bard.
Olivier’s “Hamlet.” But I was just a kid, and just thought it was about the most incomprehensible and boring way to get to a sword fight I’d ever seen.
Ah, the classic Harold Hecuba production! My first exposure to the music of Bizet and Offenbach (except for the “Can Can,” which was in various cartoons). 
The first Shakespeare I ever saw live was in Santiago, Chile. It was in 1997 during their Theater Festival and Nunoa. I didn’t know Spanish nearly as well as I thought I did and here was Shakespeare (transated from a form of English I’m not all that familiar with, either) being performed in Spanish (definitely NOT conversational Spanish). I’d been in the country a week. I believe it was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I was confused as hell. As I recall, I spent most of the performance pretending to hava clue what was going on and laughing politely whenever the crowd did.
To the best of my memory, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a live performance of Shakespeare. I do remember seeing televised performances such as the BBC productions back in the seventies, where they performed all of Shakespeare’s plays. As I recall, they did Julius Caesar first.
The first play I recall seeing performed live was The Wiz on broadway. This would have been back around 1975.
The most recent live play I saw was MASH*. It was a local production and a friend of mine was playing Col Blake.
The first whole Shakespeare play I saw whole was the Zeferelli/ Whiting/Hussey movie of Romeo and Juliet. It remains my favorite performance of the play, if only because they used actual teenagers to play the title roles.
Before that I hated Shakespeare, or at least found it boring, because of the way it was taught in high school. We never saw a performance, never even read acts out loud. I figured it was “classic” because it was old. The I saw R&J, but it still didn’t change my attitude, because I figured that was the exception to the rule.
Then I was housesitting for my grandmother and watched *“Measure for Measure” *on TV, a BBC production. I didn’t know Shakespeare could be funny! And crude! And sexy! After that I started reading the plays, and renting them on video. Henry V may be the finest play ever written. I just barely prefer the Branagh version to the Olivier, although I’d go on my back in a minute for the latter.
When I was in the 10th grade, so 1967, I guess it was, I saw Laurence Olivier’s 1946 film version of Henry V at a local art movie house. It was stunning!
The first live theater I ever saw was, I believe, in December 1968. It was Theater Atlanta’s production of the amazing MacBird!
The first live production of Shakespeare I ever saw was a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Julius Caesar at the Royal Shakespeare Theater at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1972. It was as excellent as you might expect.
The most recent live theater I’ve seen was in February: a production by a local theater, Actor’s Express, of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s Good Boys and True. Very powerful play.
Well, in third grade we got to see the sixth-graders perform Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night, but those were pretty heavily adapted and about thirty minutes long, so I’m not sure they count. I think my first “real” Shakespeare show was a free Shakespeare-in-the-street production of Twelfth Night, when I was about eleven or so? (I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure my seven-year-old brother did.)
That may have been my first professional theater experience, as well, although my parents had been taking me to community theater about as far back as I can remember.
Hoo, boy, that’s going back a ways.
Probably Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet.
The first live Shakespeare performance I ever saw was Richard II, an off-Broadway production that I went to with one of my senior English classes in high school.
That’s not one of Shakespeare’s better known plays, nor is it performed all that often. On the whole, it was very well done- even though I ended up hating Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV), which I’m pretty sure Shakespeare didn’t want me to do.
In the late 70’s my parents took my sister and me to see the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival’s version of Hamlet. I can still remember the lead, after a VERY athletic duel with Laertes lying on the stage with his chest rapidly rising and falling due to his exertions after his ‘death.’
Despite that, I was surprised at how non-bored I was with the play (not bad considering I was 10 or 11 at the time.)
Two Gentlemen of Verona, in Regina, put on by a travelling troupe from the Stratford (Ontario) Festival; probably around 1975-76.
I’d read Julius Caesar and loved it so much I started ordering more Shakespeare plays from Longmans, which was the publisher that the Saskatchewan school system used (funky coloured covers with a great big “S” on the front).
Then a poster appeared on the bulletin board at the school, that Stratford was coming to Regina! Asked my parents if we could go, and they agreed! Off we went, and I fell down the rabbit-hole. Have been reading the plays and the sonnets ever since, and catching any production I can. I’ve been to Stratford (Ontario) several times, the Folger, the Globe (reconstruction), Yale Drama - if I see it’s on, I’m there.
Not too long ago, I got a lovely facsimile of the First Folio from the Folio Society, as discussed in a previous thread.
Coming back to get the rest of the OP: the first Broadway show I ever saw was Tommy. I’ve never been a huge fan of the The Who, but I’ve remained a steady theatergoer. In the last month or two we’ve seen a lot of Shakespeare - Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and As You Like It, and next weekend we’re seeing Love is My Sin, which is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s sonnets, I think.
The first Shakespeare I remember seeing was Olivier’s Hamlet on TV, in the early 60s when I was around 12. I read Julius Caesar before that and was fascinated with it, so I may have seen either some TV production or possibly just a repeat of that episode of You Are There.
The only live Shakespeare I’ve seen has been good college productions.
The first Shakespeare (live or movie) I ever saw was a free outdoor performance of The Tempest when I was just a little kid (no more than 8, tops). Between my age and our back-of-the-crowd seats, I couldn’t really understand anything that was going on, but I was very impressed by the special effects. I’ve since read and seen it other times, and it’s now my favorite play.
Then, in high school starting in 10th grade, we studied several other plays, and saw film adaptations of a few (though I don’t remember specifically which ones). At one point, there was a field trip to see a ballet adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
My next exposure to live Shakespeare was in undergrad, when the Shakespeare class I was in went to see an outdoor performance of the Scottish play (as well as film adaptations of several more). And for the past ten years, I’ve seen 2-3 plays a year put on by Montana’s Shakespeare in the Parks troupe.
That I can recall? MacBeth, school trip.
Some college kids came to a small town in Nebraska, I think they were college chums of the English teacher, they put on one act of Romero and Juliet. 1971 I believe. (8th grade)
A couple weeks from now will be my first experience with a professional theater performance of any Shakespeare play. We’re going to see The Taming of the Shrew as a field trip for my Intro to Shakespeare class.
My non-professional experience of Shakespeare has been widely varied and a bit strange, but mostly fun, starting with a rewrite of Julius Caesar when I was in 6th grade. I was on the committee re-doing the play in modern language. Twelve-year-olds! What was he thinking? Three years later my little brother’s class did A Comedy of Errors the same way.
When my older daughter was in high school we got treated to two interesting productions staged by one of her teachers. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, done in flower child style. (At least he left the language intact for that one.) And The Taming of the Shrew, set in Texas in the '40s. And no, he didn’t leave the language alone.
I did see Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet when it came out, also the Polanski MacBeth. I still remember them, and it’s been a while.
I might have seen some on video before, but I’d say the first live theater production was The Comedy of Errors.