Boston University School of Theatre presents Shakespeare in Love, based on the screenplay by Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard, and adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. With music by Paddy Cunneen. Originally produced on the West End by Disney Theatrical Productions & Sonia Friedman Productions, directed by Declan Donnellan, and designed by Nick Ormerod. Directed by Judy Braha in BU’s Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre in Spring 2022.

Directing Shakespeare in Love at this moment has been a perspective-giving gift, illuminating what we as theater artists throughout time have had to overcome to bring our human stories to the stage. The timeless necessity to summon our special brand of resilience, alchemy and collaborative will to bring challenging, enlightening stories to our communities is not new. Shakespeare was writing poetry in 1593 because the theaters were closed due to the plague in the City of London. In our parallel universe in 2022, with theaters across the country slowly re-opening after several years of the pandemic shutdown, we are witnessing the miracle of theatrical rebirth in a dark time, just as Shakespeare, Burbage, Henslowe and Marlowe did in 1593.

In his Time Traveler’s Guide, Ian Mortimer says: “Welcome to Elizabethan England, in all its doubts, certainties, changes, traditions and contradictions. It is a jewel encrusted, muddy kingdom, glittering and starving, hopeful and fearful in equal measure….” Diving into this evocative portrait, during our current experience, we seek to play in parallel universes, watching our own “scrappy” team resurrect their production and Shakespeare’s creative partners fight the good fight to bring theater alive again…a theater that strives to show us the “very truth and nature of love.”

During our process the daily question was: who has tested positive today and will we ever have a complete cast to rehearse with? Rumbling underneath, the scarier question, would this supposedly waning pandemic become virulent enough to derail our process and shut us down? If you are sitting in the Booth, reading this today, it will mean we have once more overcome! We now have the honor, which we will not ever again take for granted, to share with you our labor of love.

How? … “It’s a mystery.”

– Judy Braha, Professor Emerita

Program & Credits

Find the complete list of the cast, creative team, and production crew, as well as dramaturgical notes and more!