Shakespeare by Any Other Name

About the Book

Shakespeare by Any Other Name is a collection of two-act plays for teenagers. Set in different time periods and places, their plots, nevertheless, mirror the story lines of five favorite plays by Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, As You Like It, and Cymbeline. “Circle Dance” delivers the zany bewilderment of love that one might see in Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night. “Bob Weaver and the Teen Angel” takes its characters and plot from Midsummer Night’s Dream. True to the setting of the play, all of its musical numbers are top of the chart songs of the 1960s. “The Gentle Art of Reappearing,” which parallels Shakespeare’s last play The Tempest, involves a different kind of storm on the island of Galveston, Texas. “Games” gives the audience a modern look at Shakespeare’s As You Like It with a delightful romantic romp through another Forest of Arden, the piney woods of East Texas. As a spin-off of Cymbeline, “Imogen’s War” takes place in 1918 in England and France at the end of WW I with the signing of the Armistice and the resolution of a family feud. For adolescent lovers of Shakespeare, these plays offer a twist from the classic versions of his plays. Not to be confused as alternatives—the Bard is inimitable—Shakespeare by any other name might still seem as sweet.

About the Author

Susan O’Connor lives with her husband and three cats. She teaches English in Houston, Texas, where her students learn about reading, writing, parsing sentences and loving Shakespeare. Her first book was Dance of Language.