Playing Shakespeare's Beautiful People

Playing Shakespeare’s Beautiful People is an in-depth, comprehensive look at the concepts and standards of "beauty" found in Shakespeare’s plays and poems, both in staged performances and in critical literary analyses. Issues as challenging as race, gender, sex, and power come into play when discussing who or what is "beautiful" in Shakespeare — and who gets to make that determination. How do we address or perform "beauty" today in a manner that is both consistent with 21^st century conceptions of diversity and equity, while still honoring the integrity of Shakespeare’s texts, even as we interrogate them?

In this volume, the fifth in the series of Playing Shakespeare’s Characters, ten distinguished contributors, including Shakespearean scholars, art historians, playwrights, actors, philosophers, visual artists, and educators, bring their unique and provocative responses to Shakespeare’s challenge for us to "look on beauty."

Louis Fantasia (series editor) is currently Artistic Associate of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. His books include: Instant Shakespeare; Tragedy in the Age of Oprah; and Talking Shakespeare: Notes from a Journey. In 2003, the Council of Europe named the theatre collection at its library in the European Parliament in his honor. In 2016 he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) for his contributions to German culture and theater. A monologue from his first play, Dreams of a Sleep to Come (2020), was included in Smith & Kraus’ Best Men’s Monologues of 2021.