An ancient family feud casts a long shadow over the town of Verona. In this hothouse of tension, brawls are quick to break out and both sides get caught in the crossfire.
In director Baz Luhrmann's contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.
A young prince's epic journey of love, obsession and betrayal
Recorded from the West End, Kiss Me Kate follows a pair of divorced actors brought together to participate in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play, and they must work together when mistaken identities get them mixed up with the mafia.
Young lovers living under an oppressive state-rule flee their home-city to change their lives, and end up changing the world. After all, love changes everything.
Two rival acting students are forced to reconcile their differences and play lovers Romeo and Juliet in their final school play, vying for a life-changing prize.
Premiering on BBC as a part of their Sunday-Night Theatre program, this 1955 adaptation of Shakespeare's classic play closely follows the original text. The Montagues and Capulets, two families of Renaissance Italy, have hated each other for years, but the son of one family and the daughter of the other fall desperately in love and secretly marry.
The Moorish general Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality it is all part of the scheme of a bitter ensign named Iago.
Ian, a commercially successful stage director, mounts an avant-garde production of "Othello" for the sole purpose of destroying Tyson, the actor who stole his fiancee Anne from him. Fanatic in his commitment to art, personal integrity and Zen Buddhism, Tyson makes the mistake of accepting the role of Othello in good faith at Anne's urging, only to find himself trapped in Ian's vengeful scheme, an escalating nightmare of absurdly bad theatre that threatens to spin out of control and push them all to the breaking point.
Lovesong
"Othello, a Moor, falls in love with Desdemona but is broken by jealousy falsely encouraged. Shakespeare's most human play sets delicacy and power, trust and jealousy, love and hate, good and evil in stark and tragic opposition. Powerless in the face of their own self destructive instincts, the characters are caught on a downward spiral towards inevitable tragedy."
The playwright's most famous dramatic study of jealousy and its tragic effects are conveyed vividly in a striking drawn animation style. The warmth of the Mediterranean contrasts with the coldness in lago's heart as he turns his noble master, Othello, against the beautiful and innocent Desdemona.
King Lear is a proud man who solicits praise from his three daughters in return for inheritance of the kingdom. Daughters Goneril and Regan profess their affection vehemently. Cordelia, who does not respect the process her father has chosen, does not humor him. Lear's perceived rejection from Cordelia leads to her banishment, thus splitting the kingdom between the other two. This hasty decision becomes his fatal error.
Frantic Assembly's famous take on Othello revived in 2023, featuring Michael Akinsulire in the title role.
James Earl Jones delivers a riveting performance as paranoid patriarch King Lear, an aging monarch who insists that his three daughters prove their love for him, only to learn he's exalted the two who seek to destroy him. This live performance recording of Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival production deftly envisions the bard's haunting tragedy with a fine supporting cast, including Raul Julia, Paul Sorvino and Rene Auberjonois.
Dame Maggie Smith stars in the 1967 screen version of Franco Zeffirelli's exuberant National Theatre production of Shakespeare's romantic comedy, in which young lovers Hero and Claudio conspire to make sharp-tongued rivals Beatrice and Benedick fall in love with each other.
Rafe Esquith, 1992 American Teacher of the Year and National Medal of Arts recipient, teaches 5th-grade children whose parents don't speak English at a school in a dangerous, poor, drug-infested 100% Latino/Asian neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Juliet awakens from a fever dream. The lines between hallucination and memory blur as cinema and dance collide in a kaleidoscopic journey of belonging, defiance, and self-discovery. A vivid retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet brought to life by Scottish Ballet.
The evil Iago pretends to be friend of Othello in order to manipulate him to serve his own end in the film version of this Shakespeare classic.