An effort by three Texas-based scholars involved in a global movement to diversify the works of William Shakespeare is growing, with more performances and a second volume of plays.
Why it matters: The scholars are making Shakespeare more accessible to U.S.-Mexico border communities and beyond.
Zoom in: “The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera, Volume 2” was released yesterday and contains four plays.
- The plays tackle Shakespeare’s complex treatment of comedy and reimagine “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Winter’s Tale,” “Measure for Measure,” and “The Comedy of Errors.”
Catch up quick: The three scholars, Kathryn Vomero Santos of Trinity University and Katherine Gillen and Adrianna M. Santos of Texas A&M University-San Antonio, last year were awarded a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to examine Shakespeare through a Chicano studies lens.
- “The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera, Volume 1″ was published in May 2023.
Zoom in: Like the first volume, the new one retells Shakespeare’s work through Latino and Indigenous lenses.
- The latest book contains Lydia G. Garcia and Bill Rauch’s bilingual “La Comedia of Errors,” which uses humor while tackling the separation of families at the U.S.–Mexico border.
The intrigue: The first volume is already being taught at two Canadian universities and all over the U.S., including at the University of Kentucky and Princeton University.
- “I think that is a testament to the types of plays that are in the anthology … but also gives a sense that people are really hungry for a way to teach and engage with Shakespeare that reflects their students and their students’ identities,” Kathryn Vomero Santos tells Axios Latino.
Zoom out: Gillen tells Axios a Shakespeare borderland conference held in San Antonio in March attracted 200 teachers, students, artists and theater practitioners.
- “We’ve been able to see what happens when these plays really come to life.”
- Adrianna M. Santos says her favorite part of that conference was seeing a student production of “Romeo and Juliet” set in their hometown in the South Texas Valley.
- “I just could see them taking the frame of Shakespeare and doing their own thing with it, and it made me very proud of them.”
What we’re watching: The scholars are planning a third volume and more events in Texas.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the three scholars are Texas-based (not all Latinas).
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