From BroadwayWorld's Archive: The Royal Shakespeare Company's acclaimed production of Shakespeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE will play in select movie houses across North America, beginning August 19. The product…

The New York premiere cast of Our Class will reunite for the limited transfer engagement, with several to star in The Merchant of Venice as well.

Although security has been increased at London's Criterion Theatre, The Merchant of Venice star Tracy-Ann Oberman was still asked not to leave the venue following a performance due to pro-Palestine rallies, …

The rise of fascism in the 1930s East End is given a human face Hot on the heels of Brigid Larmour’s updating of The Merchant of Venice to the East End in 1936, a spirited new musical across town at Southwar…

Southwark Playhouse, LondonFraming the battle within a 1930s romance and a 2024 walking tour, Adam Lenson’s production has big ballads, hip-hop-ish commentary and high camp Headline political tensions give de…

Tracy-Ann Oberman turns Shylock into a heroic Jewish anti-fascist It’s an unhappy time to be staging Shakespeare’s problematic play, given its antisemitic content, so hats off to adaptor-director Brigid Lar…

The final day of the Folger Theatre’s Reading Room Festival proved as plucky and spirited as ever. At the center of this Shakespeare-filled Sunday was a staged reading of “Everything That Never Happened” …

Ambition, power and political unrest explode onto the stage in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, direct from the RSC. Starring Tracy-Ann Oberman (Eastenders, Doctor Who) as Shylock, Shakespeare’s classic is transp…

Land of Idiots By Steven Leigh Morris There’s almost nobody I’ve spoken with who doesn’t anticipate 2024 with dread. The most optimistic assessment is that we’ll be lucky if we can make it through ne…

L-R: Front Chloe Taylor, Rob Elk, Andrea Hutchman; Rear: Pat Towne, Johanna McKay, Judy Heneghan, Mark Fite, Joe Keyes, and Peter Breitmayer at door. (Photo by Louisa Gauerke) A Display of Pointless Lunacy …

ECHOES OF DARKNESS     Jews gather, laughing and chattering, offering a toast as they run down the aisles to settle downstage for a Passover meal with candles, prayers and the ancient question “why is this …

Melbourne Shakespeare Company will return to the Rose Garden this December, revitalising one of Shakespeare’s rarely produced comedies; The Merchant

The touring production of “The Merchant of Venice 1936” has been targeted by antisemites, its star revealed. Tracy-Ann Oberman, who has starred in “Doctor Who” and “Friday Night Dinner,” says the to…

The photographs below offer a small sample of the many Jewish characters that have been portrayed in plays and musicals on Broadway, focusing on the most familiar and the most recent.  The first known Jewish c…

The world premiere of Edward Einhorn's retelling of The Merchant of Venice is currently running at the New Ohio Theatre.

Is “The Merchant of Venice” antisemitic? Was Shakespeare?  “The Shylock and the Shakespeareans,” playwright and director Edward Einhorn’s retelling of the Bard’s long-controversial play, shuts dow…

Having seen (read “been positively blown away by”) several of Edward Einhorn’s previous shows produced through Untitled Theater Company No. 61, and being a long-time lover of Shakespeare, I was all in fo…

The post The Merchant of Venice (Annotated) appeared first on STAGE RAW - ARTS IN L.A. - SERVED FRESH.

These honors recognize how individual artists and productions were affectionately remembered by individuals belonging to our team of generationally, ethnically and gender-diverse writers. The post Spite!: “T…

Love London Love Culture’s Emma Clarendon discovers what critics have been saying about Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman’s new production of The Merchant of Venice 1936, currently on tour.

Watford Palace theatreA striking, slick adaptation of Shakespeare’s problematic play sees Tracy-Ann Oberman play a Jewish matriarch up against the fascists of 1930s London In Tracy-Ann Oberman and Brigid Lar…

The actor talks to Sarah Crompton about setting ‘The Merchant of Venice’ at the time of Oswald Mosley’s fascists, and her thoughts on trigger warnings

Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Shylock, who has been relocated to 1930s Britain, is inspired by her tough great grandma – while Henry Goodman felt shame after losing himself in Shakespeare’s most notorious character…

Oberman will star as Shylock in Brigid Larmour's adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy.

The Merchant of Venice 1936 among four plays to feature at RSC’s reopened Swan theatre this summer A new take on Shakespeare’s controversial play The Merchant of Venice, set in London’s East End in the 19…

‘A Little Life’ comes to the stage, Sheridan Smith and Lily Allen return to the West End, and ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is transported to 1930s Cable Street – we bring you our guide to 2023’s most e…

The African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) will present AAFCA Salutes Broadway. The event will honor The Merchant of Venice and Till star John Douglas Thompson, Topdog/Underdog writer Suzan-Lori Park…

Complete casting has been announced for the previously reported return of the Tony-winning Broadway revival of Take Me Out. This revival of Richard Greenberg's 2002 play, directed by Scott Ellis, will begin per…

Why waiting outdoors for hours for free tickets is always on my family's calendar --- At 6 a.m. on a recent July morning by Central Park's Delacorte Theater, a woman smiled as my family took our place behind he…

Darius Daughtry and Grace Arts Center reimagine The Merchant of Venice in 1940s Fort Lauderdale to examine tensions when when infighting exists within the African American community. The post The Merchant of Ve…

Clyde's, Company and SIX win four awards each --- Talk about spreading the love! No one production dominated the 2022 Drama Desk Awards, which honor shows on Broadway and beyond in NYC. The Broadway productions…

Theatre's return season has been triumphant and rocky. Because of COVID-19, schedules are constantly changing, not just for individual productions but for theatre awards, too. Traditionally, the Drama Desk nomi…

Peter Filichia, James Marino, and Michael Portantiere talk about Suffs @ The Public Theater, To My Girls @ Second Stage, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, Manhattan Theat…

The Merchant of Venice is seen as a problematic play but, increasingly, it seems that the problems are with us, as much as they are with Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Theatre Company stages "The Merchant of Venice" with John Douglas Thompson as Shylock.

When Shakespeare wrote “The Merchant of Venice,” it was done as comedy and the hero and heroine did not die—that was the differentiation at the time between a comedy and tragedy. Comedies like “Much Ado…

Abigail Graham's pacy production focuses on the moneylender's fate A supposed 'comedy' gives the moneylender Shylock pride of place The Merchant of Venice is a comedy, you say? Shakespeare, as ever, refuses to…

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, LondonAbigail Graham trims and reshuffle’s Shakespeare’s play with glitzy gameshow scenes and a brutal, lonely reckoning A stained, lidless plastic container rests on electric weigh…

New productions of “The Merchant of Venice” and “Black No More” aim to reflect our current racial politics. The results are uneven.

By JK Clarke Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) has taken a bold step in its new production of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. But not for the expected reason (casting a black actor, John Dougla…

Director Arin Arbus digs into Shakespeare's play to show us, anew, what's been there all along. Patrick Maley reviews. The post Review: The Merchant of Venice at Theatre for a New Audience appeared first on Ex…

We think that The Merchant of Venice was written between 1596 and 1599 – in the twilight years of Elizabeth’s reign. It was printed in 1600 and so had, one assumes, already been performed by then.

Arin Arbus, resident director at Theatre for a New Audience, staging her tenth classic for them took a great risk with her new production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: not only putting this 1597 pl…

★★★★✩ John Douglas Thompson brings a steadfast gaze and spine of steel to the much-maligned Shylock The post The Merchant of Venice: A Too-Timely Production of Shakespeare’s Problem Play appeared fi…

★★★★☆ Arin Arbus directs a cast in which some act flashily and some put too much flash in their acting The post The Merchant of Venice: John Douglas Thompson’s Shylock Takes the Town appeared first…

Portia: hero or villain?

Arin Arbus and John Douglas Thompson are collaborating on their fifth play, a Theater for a New Audience production that begins previews Saturday.

A dozen promising productions, including three rarely revived musicals --- While January's Off-Broadway roundup was filled with new musicals (all of which are still running by the way), February is all about ra…

My husband, Chris Honer, who has died aged 73 of cancer, was artistic director of the Library Theatre Company (LTC) in Manchester for 27 years, from 1987 to 2014. While at LTC his many acclaimed productions inc…

Thompson will play Shylock in a new production from director Arin Arbus and Theatre for a New Audience.

Olivier Award winner Giles Terera is heading back to the room where it happens. He will return to the role of Aaron Burr in the West End production of Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre from December 17 t…

I skipped the 11-plus and was failing at school. Then I met Cecil Dormand, the extraordinary English teacher who transformed my life for ever I never sat my 11-plus. On the day of the test, I wandered around th…

Audiences who are open to a show that provides both riotous comedy and bracing truths will find plenty to think about in this deconstruction of one of the Bard’s most problematic problem plays. The post Theat…

Welcome to this week's Meet the Festival, with guests Sara Farb and Steve Ross, hosted by Stephanie Johns. In this fun and informal digital Q&A sessions, they discuss the Finally There's Sun Cabaret. FINALLY T…

By making his 12-year-old dream come true, director Mohmed Abdalla aims to send a message of hope to all mime theatre artists in Egypt, urging them to continue their efforts. Halawes (Hallucinations), a silent …

Welcome to this week's Meet the Festival, with guests Sean Arbuckle and Arlene Duncan, hosted by Lois Adamson. In this fun and informal digital Q&A sessions, they discuss this year's production of Serving Eliza…

Welcome to this week's Meet the Festival, with guests Jani Lauzon and Brefny Caribou, hosted by Stephanie Johns. In this fun and informal digital Q&A sessions, they discuss this year's production of The Rez Sis…

021/22 Season includes first Broadway-bound musical premiering on STC’s stage, “Once Upon a One More Time” and two Shakespeare plays — “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Merchant of Venice,” a …

Your hosts Katrina Heil, Jada Jackson, Imahni King, and Emily Talerman will dive into everything Shakespeare in celebration of his birthday with student and actor Seth Holt and The Old Globe’s Erna Finci Vite…

The actors and old friends talk about how theatre beats TV, the terror of standup – and the joys of making Yoko Ono crack up John Simm’s dad encouraged him towards a career on stage; Tracy-Ann Oberman’s p…

Falstaff, Mistress Quickly and the fairy rulers of A Midsummer Night’s Dream helped the author through a traumatic childhood and feature in her memoir No Boys Play Here Sally Bayley was about 12 when she ente…

Last week's Musical of the Month column focused on what has become of the original cast of Hairspray since they took Broadway by storm during the summer of 2002. This week, we'll take a look at what has become…

The streaming series will combine plot points and characters from King Lear, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, and more.

Polly Findlay's 2015 take on Shakespeare's trickiest comedy pays dividends Ah, 2015. Those halcyon days of packed theatres. Thank God the RSC had the presence of mind to film Polly Findlay’s production of Th…

Thornton Wilder's classic play Our Town is getting a Broadway revival starring two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman as the Stage Manager in 2021. To Kill a Mockingbird director Bartlett Sher will helm the prod…

It will be Hoffman’s first Broadway role since 1989’s "The Merchant of Venice."

Bell Shakespeare has announced that it will open its archives for a special limited release of production recordings from its recent history, exclusively for schools. From Monday 25 May 2020, Bell Shakespeare�…

Judi Dench, Jade Anouka, Harriet Walter and Patrick Stewart are among the stars to perform the playwright’s words online during crisis caused by Covid-19 Coronavirus and culture – a list of major cancellat…

Carey Perloff, who directed Seana McKenna in the role last year in Calgary: “I am not always convinced that cross-gender casting helps illuminate Shakespeare; many of the plays focus so specifically on gender…

By Mark Ludmon Tracy-Ann Oberman talks about playing Shylock as an East End matriarch in the upcoming tour of The Merchant of Venice This post 1930s fascism inspires Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Shylock first appeared…

For a production last year in Calgary, a gender switch illuminated the Shakespeare play's conflicts in fresh and troubling ways.

By Douglas Mayo Tracy Ann Oberman is to play Shylock in Brigid Larmour's new production of The Merchant Of Venice Tour. Book tickets now. This post The Merchant Of Venice Tour starring Tracy-Ann Oberman first a…

As Michael Billington, the Guardian’s chief theatre critic, prepares to step down, he discusses what has changed – and what hasn’t – in his 48 years as a nightly aisle-squatter Ten of my favourite shows…

When I was 13, my mother took me to see Trevor Nunn’s production of The Merchant of Venice at the National Theatre.

Roundabout Theatre Company has compiled a talent-packed cast for its upcoming one-night benefit staging of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. The previously announced performance, starring five-time…

Also featured in this year's iteration of the annual event were Finn Wittrock, Charlaine Woodard, Lily Rabe, and Hamish Linklater.

1938 Italy provides the fascist framework for this Invictus staging. With anti-Semitism on the rise in the U.S. and Europe, it might make perfect sense to revisit Shakespeare's most…