Tag Archive for: Shakespeare

A man gestures onstage in Much Ado About Nothing

Understanding Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing

Modern audiences don’t have the benefit of footnotes when enjoying a Shakespeare play. When reading the text, footnotes are often necessary to comprehend the nuances of Elizabethan age humor, slang, and history. Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is heralded as one of Shakespeare’s best comedies, containing copious amounts of wordplay and banter. Before attending a […]

A woman sits onstage with a guitar in Much Ado About Nothing

First Look: Much Ado About Nothing

A playful comedy layered with all the rich complexity that comes with Shakespeare’s work, Much Ado About Nothing is a snappy, surprisingly timely meditation on gossip, gender roles, and the follies of romance. Take a look at some of the production photos below.

The two masks that define theatre, one crying on the left and one laughing on the right

The Tragicomedy of Shakespeare’s Tragic Comedy: Much Ado About Nothing

While the names Thalia and Melpomene might mean nothing to you, you would certainly recognize their faces. Also known as Sock and Buskin, the iconic representation of theatre features two masks with familiar laughing and crying faces. Thalia is one of the nine Muses in Greek mythology, the patron of Comedy, represented with the laughing […]

An intricate painting of the wedding scene in Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing: More than a Renaissance rom-com

There’s something very modern about Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The rapid-fire zings, the flirty aggression — If Beatrice and Benedick met today, they would badmouth and ghost each other on a dating app. Fortunately, the play is respectfully presented in its original form, only stylistically updated to the 1930s in the DCPA Theatre Company’s […]