AFTERNOON ON BROADWAY

Afternoon on Broadway: Shakespeare in Broadway Musicals

Though it seems unlikely, William Shakespeare’s plays provided the plots, characters, and inspiration for several musicals. The best known are Rodgers and Hart’s The Boys from Syracuse (1938), inspired by The Comedy of Errors; Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate (1948), based on The Taming of the Shrew; Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s West Side Story (1957), a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet; and Galt MacDermot’s Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971), a rock musical based on the play of the same name. This talk by Marc Courtade will examine these shows using musical and video examples to show how well Shakespeare translated into the twentieth century musical.