New York City
Shakespeare’s Slave
What if William Shakespeare had never written Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and all his other later masterpieces? In 1596 Shakespeare had a creative crisis. Broke and bedeviled by self-doubt, he was unable to write the "Henry IV" play commissioned by the Lord Chamberlain. The question of whether "to be or not to be" hung by a thread – until Shakespeare met one of London’s first African slaves – who changed his life.
Shakespeare’s Slave runs in repertory with H4
Performances begin: May 10, 2024