Destiny Rose Murphy's Adventures and Blatherings

Seeing Shakespeare

Feb 20, 2024
4 minute read

I love Shakespeare. I read almost all the histories in college and fell in love, and now that I’m an adult with cash and access to good theater I see as much Shakespeare on stage as I can. I dream of seeing every show Shakespeare wrote, including the bad ones, and I have now seen enough of them that I’m struggling to keep track! This post is a tracker for what shows I have seen, when, and where, so that I can know what to look for. Also, so that I can look back fondly on the good shows I have seen, and remember the shows that I hated so that I can see better productions of those.

Comedies: 9/16

  • Much Ado About Nothing
    • 2017 - The Globe (my first ever live Shakespeare!)
  • The Taming of the Shrew
    • 2018 - Dallas Shakespeare in the Park (terrible)
  • The Comedy of Errors
    • 2018 - Dallas Shakespeare in the Park (terrible)
  • The Merchant of Venice
    • July 31, 2018 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (fantastic)
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
    • Aug. 1, 2018 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (fun)
    • July 10, 2021 - NYC Shakespeare in the Park (cut out a whole wife!)
  • As You Like It
    • March 1, 2019 - SMU Meadows (high quality student production, but still clearly students)
  • Twelfth Night
    • June 17, 2019 - Drunk Shakespeare at The Wild Detectives (my favorite version of the fool I've ever seen)
    • July 10, 2019 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (fun)
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre
    • March 5, 2024 - Fiasco Theater (great production, awful play)
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream
    • July 2, 2025 - Bridge Theater in London (fun modern immersive production! It swapped Oberon and Titania so that Oberon goes for Bottom, and it made Theseus warlike in the beginning which I liked but it softened him by the end which felt like a cowardly read)
  • Not Yet Seen
      • The Tempest
      The Two Gentlemen of Verona
      Measure for Measure
      Love's Labour's Lost
      All's Well That Ends Well
      The Winter's Tale
      The Two Noble Kinsmen

    Histories: 6/11

  • Henry VI, Part 1
    • Aug. 2, 2018 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (solid production but this play is so bad)
  • Henry VI, Part 2
    • July 8, 2019 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (same)
  • Henry VI, Part 3
    • July 8, 2019 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (same)
  • Henry IV, Part 1
    • Oct. 6, 2019 - DC Shakespeare Theater (acceptable, but not inspired)
  • Richard III
    • July 15, 2022 - NYC Shakespeare in the Park (a cool reversal of expectations about disability, but the lambast by Richard's mother was done in ASL without an interpreter, and I think it really took away from what the production was trying to accomplish)
  • Richard II
    • Nov. 5, 2025 - Astor Place Theatre (very good lead; weak supporting cast with lots of line flubs; cool-ish staging and costume; just a deeply boring show)
  • Not Yet Seen
      • King John
      Henry V
      Henry IV, Part 2
      Henry VIII
      Edward III

    Tragedies: 7/12

  • Julius Caesar
    • 2017 - Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon (stunning)
  • Hamlet
    • 2017 - In London (with Andrew Scott!)
    • July 9, 2019 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (the strongest Hamlet actor I've seen so far)
    • July 8, 2023 - NYC Shakespeare in the Park (great Polonius, bad everything else)
  • Othello
    • Aug. 1, 2018 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (acceptable, but not inspired)
  • Macbeth
    • July 9, 2019 - Utah Shakespeare Festival (not spooky enough)
  • Romeo and Juliet
    • Feb 7, 2024 - Circle in the Square (incredible Romeo and person playing Mercutio + Friar, but they added pop songs at several points including cuing the audience to sing We Are Young in the emotion build of Act 2 and it was an awful choice; also cut the death of Paris wtf! Juliet was just not believable, and having one person play Nurse and Tybalt didn't land)
  • Coriolanus
    • February 28, 2026 - Theater for a New Audience (so disappointing. They gender swapped Aufidius, gave the characters guns instead of swords, and vaguely modernized enough of the clothing to pull all the homoeroticism right out, thus making the play soulless. The production was supplemented with three jumbotrons playing slight-lag thermal vision drone footage of the whole production for absolutely zero reason)
  • Titus Andronicus
    • March 26, 2026 - Red Bull Theater (absolutely wonderful production. Aaron the Moor was played by the same guy that did Coriolanus the month prior and I just don't love him, but everything else was entirely perfect)
  • Not Yet Seen
      • Troilus and Cressida
      Timon of Athens
      King Lear
      Antony and Cleopatra
      Cymbeline

    Honorable Mentions (Shakespeare-Adjacent): All the Devils Are Here (overview of Shakespearean villains; delightful), The Book of Will (not memorable), Sleep No More (sort of Macbeth but barely; cool spectacle), Drunk Shakespeare (a version that did not adhere to the text, but was nevertheless a fun telling of Macbeth), The Tempest (interpretive dance version; terrible).