Toby Belch (Newton Buchanan) coaches Andrew Aguecheek (Paul Harrold) in how to be threatening. (DelawareShakespeare/Alessandra Nicole from 2022)
Delaware Shakespeare (DelShakes) will present a summer production for the first time that is a musical, partly in Spanish, and includes words written by people not named William Shakespeare.
“Twelfth Night O Lo Que Quieras” was initially presented in DelShakes’ 2022 community tour.
Artistic director Mariah Ghant said she was “really blown away” by the 2022 production and wanted to bring it to the larger, outdoor performance space at New Castle County’s Rockwood Park & Museum and a potentially larger audience.
“I instantly had tears in my eyes with the first chords of the show,” she said. “I just found that the music was so powerful. It did exactly what we’re looking to do with Shakespeare’s text – allowing people to have another entryway into what can often feel hard to access for folks. Making it into this bilingual musical is a way to open it up for many, many people to have a way to see themselves in the story.”
The comedy “combines love, confusion, mistaken identities, and joyful discovery,” the Folger Shakespeare Library explains. The main plot involves the twins Sebastian and Viola surviving a shipwreck, with neither knowing that the other is alive.
DelShakes makes changes from the original Twelfth Night script
Shakespeare’s original script runs almost three hours, with intermission. The 2022 bilingual musical, with additions by Liz Filios and Tanaquil Márquez, ran about 15 minutes less. The creative team is trimming more to hit two hours and 15 minutes, with intermission, for Rockwood.
Ghant estimates that 20% to 30% of the words are in Spanish, but feels it’s not an issue for monoglots. “I found it incredibly easy, honestly,” said Ghant, who does not speak Spanish. “I think a lot of times people view Shakespeare as being a different language. I think it does that same kind of thing with the Spanish. It might feel like you can’t understand every word, but that’s what the acting is doing, to bring forward the emotions and put a visual to what we might typically just be reading or hearing.”
There will be a new director, so the announcement of the show said it will be “revamped and reimagined.” Casting will occur in 2025, with izzy sazak returning as Violeta (the new name for Viola, a term with negative connotations in Spanish).
DelShakes’ 2025 schedule
“Twelfth Night O Lo Que Quieras” (the show’s subtitle translates Shakespeare’s “or what you will”) will be presented for three weekends this summer at Rockwood.
In 2022, 593 people saw the show during the community tour. In contrast, the summer productions are presented to three to four times as many people.
The community tour this fall features “Two Gentlemen of Verona.” The tour features “free performances at community centers, detention facilities, adult high schools, and other non-traditional locations where people may have limited access to professional arts experiences.”
Delaware Shakespeare started in 2003 at Archmere Academy, moved to Rockwood in 2006 and added the community tour in 2016.
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