6 Musicals That Put a Modern Spin on Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s work has left an indelible impact on culture all across the world, inspiring everything from movies and TV shows to songs and experimental performances of every kind. Yet another medium that Shakespeare’s work has lent itself exceptionally well to is the modern musical.

Unsurprisingly, Shakespeare’s heart-stoppingly dramatic twists, passionate and doomed romances, and hilariously chaotic mishaps have all made for incredible fodder for musical theater. In honor of Shakespeare Day on April 23, here are six musicals inspired by the Bard’s work—some that take more liberties with his creations than others.

West Side Story

Perhaps the most famous musical adaptation of a Shakespeare play, West Side Story superimposes the romantic tragedy of Romeo and Juliet onto the gritty streets of New York City in the 1950s. With music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, this musical marked a synergistic meeting of creative minds. It pulls many details from the plot of Romeo and Juliet, but focuses on a violent clash between two New York City gangs called the Sharks and the Jets rather than the rivalry between the Montagues and Capulets.

& Juliet

The 2019 musical & Juliet puts a decidedly feminist and contemporary twist on the end of Romeo and Juliet by exploring what would happen if Juliet lived at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Featuring a series of pop hits by Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin, which range from Britney Spears’ “...Baby One More Time” to Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” this musical follows Juliet as she travels through Paris, and explores a number of different paths the play’s characters could theoretically take, had Shakespeare been open to changing his original ending.

Kiss Me, Kate

Kiss Me, Kate is a creative and meta interpretation of the events of Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew. It features two concurrent narratives: a musical-within-a-musical version of The Taming of the Shrew, and the story of Lilli Vanessi and Frank Graham, a divorced couple who are brought back together as co-stars of the musical.

The story is extremely Shakespearean in its use of many characters and overlapping storylines, which come together to create a charming reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s winning tale of Petruchio and his efforts to court the strong-willed Kate. Cole Porter’s music and lyrics and Sam and Bella Spewack’s book have made this a classic.

All Shook Up

The musical All Shook Up asks: what if Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was very loosely adapted into a jukebox musical featuring Elvis songs? It answers this by telling the tale of a generic American town in the 1950s that is thrown into shambles when a motorcycle-riding nomad named Chad comes to visit.

Overall, it's a decidedly modern way of interpreting Shakespeare’s tale of a woman named Viola who disguises herself as a man named Cesario to gain employment from a duke named Orsino—only for her to fall in love with the duke while the woman he is in love with, Olivia, falls for Cesario.

All Shook Up is more lightly inspired by Twelfth Night than a precise adaptation of it, but it features some key elements of the Shakespeare play, such as extensive webs of romantic confusion created by cross-dressing.

The Donkey’s Show: A Midsummer Night’s Disco

Like other musicals on this list, The Donkey’s Show transports Shakespeare’s mystical, Athens-set comedy into a decidedly modern setting—and this time, it’s the disco scene of the 1970s.

Productions often involve audience members by inviting them to dance and drink in nightclub-esque environments. The show also utilizes disco hits like “YMCA” and “We Are Family,” while trading Shakespeare’s fairy-filled forest for the equally hallucinatory environment of an illuminated dancefloor.

Here, fairy queen and king Titania and Oberon are reimagined as an embattled nightclub organizer and disco star, and the character of Bottom is sometimes replaced by a pair of dancing twins.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

The 1971 Broadway musical Two Gentlemen of Verona adapted Shakespeare’s play of the same name, envisioning the comedy in 1960s-esque Milan but keeping its basic plot elements as well as the names of its protagonists.

The play and the musical both follow two best friends, Valentine and Proteus, who are both in love with a woman named Silvia. The musical is a pretty faithful adaptation overall—but unlike the play, it gives them plenty of rock-and-roll bangers and ballads to sing.