unsuborsuper:

I’ve been sitting on this list for a bit (mostly because I… forgot I wrote it) but now, here it is! Note: These are all things I have seen in actual productions or done myself.

1. Assume the characters love each other. The more they hate each other, the more fun this is!
2. Move punctuation around to make new sentences. (There’s textual precedent for this! The Prologue to ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’- in Midsummer, yo- bases its humor on the actor speaking it having messed up his pauses. Also a lot of punctuation was added by editors later, so this one isn’t even a stretch.)
3. Eliminate metatheatrical deception. Asides? Everyone on stage can hear them. Disguise? Everyone can see through it.
4. Cut out famous soliloquies. I saw a production of Hamlet that cut ‘To be or not to be.’ It was EXCELLENT. Corollary 4a: Leave in the bits that always get cut.
5. Kill somebody who the script leaves alive. In that same Hamlet, Horatio drank the rest of the poison and died after delivering his final speech.
6. Introduce a physical plot point without changing the text. The Shakespeare Theatre in DC did a King Lear where Cordelia was played by a deaf actor, and the Fool was her interpreter. (I also saw a Much Ado in which the actor who played Beatrice was pregnant in real life. The production didn’t really acknowledge that, but it would have been so interesting if they had!)
7. Make it a musical! Keep the text, put songs in it. Or just set the text to music. Or, if there are songs in it already, replace them with modern ones- not a Shakespeare example, but I’ve seen a couple versions of Knight of the Burning Pestle that did this.
8. Fuck genres. Play tragedies for laughs. Make comedies disturbing.
9. What if the characters know they’re characters in a play? What if just one of them does? Shakespeare uses enough theatrical language that you can really have fun with this.

I will probably add more to this list, or make a second one of things I haven’t seen (or done!) but would really like to. If you’ve seen or done anything else fun and unusual, reblog and add it! I’d love to know about it!

Hamlet: Man delights me not. No, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Rosencrantz: No my lord there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
Hamlet: Why did you laugh then, when I said “Man delights not me”?
Rosencrantz: Because you’re really fucking gay

crystallizedtwilight:

nanyoky:

I want to write an alternative version of Romeo and Juliet where instead of being a little ponce and trying to work things out for himself, Romeo asks his smarter friends what to do about the whole thing and Benvolio and Mercutio come up with the world’s greatest plan:

Marriage of convenience between Juliet and Mercutio.

Think about it.

Juliet’s parents want her to marry into the Prince’s family. Mercutio is a good compromise between no marriage and Paris.

Mercutio probably won’t get his inheritance if he keeps being HELLA FUCKING GAY ALL OVER THE PLACE so a beard is only a benefit to him.

They would probably get along great rolling their eyes at how adorably stupid Romeo is.

Romeo and Benvolio could get a “bachelor pad” right next to Juliet and Mercutio’s house. Every night, Romeo and Mercutio high five as they hop the fence to go bang their one true love.

The second half of the play is just all of them trying to keep up the charade and being “THIS CLOSE” to getting caught all the time. But everything ends nicely because true love conquers all.

Everybody wins. Nobody dies.