Baton Rouge is in its Shakespeare era

Love, betrayal, war, death and family drama. Nobody does universal themes better than Shakespeare, whose well-known works and quotable lines never seem to go out of style. But if you feel like the English playwright is having a moment lately, you’d be right. The bestselling novel and 2025 Oscar-nominated film Hamnet, the 2023 Tony-nominated jukebox musical &Juliet, and a British South Asian interpretation of Hamlet in London last fall are part of the wave of recent Shakespeare-inspired works circulating worldwide.

That backdrop is helping to energize a bevy of local Shakespeare-centric events here at home. This month, the Louisiana Shakespeare Company hosts its second annual Louisiana Shakespeare Festival, a free gathering and vendor fair that gives attendees a friendly intro to the Bard. And in June, the recently formed Mid City Civic Theatre will stage Much Ado about Nothing as its inaugural summer show.

These follow other events that took place earlier this spring, including Ascension Community Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet in February, the Turner-Fischer Center for Opera’s production of Roméo et Juliette at the LSU Shaver Theatre in March, and the Louisiana Shakespeare Company’s A Comedy of Errors in April.

“I think people are in the mood for Shakespeare right now because of things like Hamnet and, even though it’s a different time period, Bridgerton,” says Shannon Walsh, LSU associate professor of theatre history and co-founder of the Mid City Civic Theatre. “We’re in a time of enjoying ‘period chic.’ We see those Regency and Renaissance stories as hip and cool.”

Walsh also credits the Louisiana Shakespeare Company for broadening local interest. Founded in 2023 by Jennifer Bouquet, Katy Truluck and Liz Odom-Dalton, the nonprofit aims to make Shakespeare accessible through annual spring and fall productions, a public library program and a one-day Shakespeare festival.

“Shakespeare belongs to everybody—that’s actually our motto,” says Bouquet, a theater teacher at Glasgow Middle School. “The themes are timeless.”

The company’s actors will perform live scenes from A Comedy of Errors and The Tempest at this month’s festival, where attendees can also learn to sword fight like Tybalt and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, view costumes from past shows, and make and write with the same kind of ink the Bard used in “scribe school.”

One of the advantages of performing Shakespeare is that it’s relatively inexpensive to produce. Dramatic works written before 1929 are considered part of the public domain, relieving theater companies from paying thousands to secure rights. That prompted the newly formed Mid City Civic Theatre to opt for the Shakespeare comedy Much Ado About Nothing as its first-ever show this summer.

Walsh, a co-director, says the beloved comedy lends itself to creative interpretations. She and her team will situate their version in Louisiana during Carnival season. The play will feature separate youth and adult casts performing on different nights. Original music is also being composed for the show.

There’s still more Shakespeare to come later this year. At its festival, the Louisiana Shakespeare Company will reveal its upcoming season, which starts in August.

The swirl of Shakespeare offerings is a chance to demystify what can feel dense and inaccessible, Bouquet says. For most of us, the first taste was reading his works in a middle- or high-school English class.

“Shakespeare was originally meant to be seen and heard, not read,” Bouquet says. “His works weren’t even compiled in written form until seven years after his death. If you can see and experience it, and understand the emotion and plot, the language will come.”