Full Length Play
Comedy
Farce, Adaptations (Shakespeare), Period, Romantic Comedy
120 minutes (2 hours)
Time Period - 1930s
Settings Of Play - Hollywood, 1934, on the set of the Warner Bros. film of Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
FEATURES / CONTAINS
Local Celebrity Cameo, Physical Comedy, Stage Combat, Special Effects
UIL Approved, Competition or audition material
Unit Set/Multiple Settings
Elaborate / High Volume Costumes, Fantasy Costumes, Period Costumes
CAUTIONS
No Special Cautions
THEMES
Betrayal, Friendship, Love, Marriage, Memory,
TARGET AUDIENCE
Appropriate for all audiences, Pre-Teen (Age 11 - 13), Teen (Age 14 - 18)
PERFORMANCE GROUP
Jr High/Primary, High School/Secondary, College Theatre / Student, Community Theatre, Dinner Theatre, Professional Theatre, Reader's Theatre, Outdoor, Large Stage
Winner! of the 2004 Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play
It's 1934, and Shakespeare's most famous fairies, Oberon and Puck, have magically materialized on the Warner Bros. Hollywood set of Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instantly smitten by the glitz and glamour of show biz, the two are ushered onto the silver screen to play (who else?) themselves. With a little help from a feisty flower, blonde bombshells, movie moguls, and arrogant "asses" are tossed into loopy love triangles, with raucous results. The mischievous magic of moviedom sparkles in this hilarious comic romp.
"Shakespeare in Hollywood will charm your socks off. It left me smiling in my Amtrak aisle seat all the way home to New York." - The Wall Street Journal
"Shakespeare in Hollywood is so deliciously inventive, you'd swear Ludwig and the Bard were in cahoots. At once poignant and funny, literary and farcical, sophisticated and silly, political and fanciful, high-brow and low-brow… a delight!" - The Baltimore Sun
"Lights, camera, action - there's plenty of it in Ken Ludwig's fantastical farce … Ludwig has constructed an amazingly dense and layered romp [and] clearly had a ball fusing Shakespearean diction with the wisecracking verbal jousting that characterized pre-World War II comedies." - The Boston Globe
"A fast, funny, entertaining night." - NBC 4
"Mischief, mayhem and laughter abound as the Good Theater tackles this farcical notion in Ken Ludwig's devilishly funny play Shakespeare in Hollywood.... There's never a dull moment in this fun-filled piece." - The Portland Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram
"Wit Makes a Hit!" -The Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA
Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare in Hollywood had its world premier in 2003 at Arena Stage and won the Helen Hayes award for Best New Play of the Year.
