Shakespeare in Love is a play with music that was adapted for the stage by Tony Award® and Olivier Award®winning writer Lee Hall, based on the screenplay by Academy Award®-winning writer Marc Norman and Tony Award®, Olivier Award®, and Academy Award®-winning writer Tom Stoppard. A romantic piece of historical fiction, the story centers around a young Will Shakespeare as he struggles to find his inspiration. Enter the feisty, aristocratic Viola de Lesseps, who longs to be an actor. The relationship they forge serves as inspiration for Will’s greatest play – Romeo and Juliet.
This stage adaptation of the 1998 film brings Shakespeare’s dialogue to the forefront and highlights its theatrical origins. Much of the dialogue is taken from Shakespeare’s cannon (with Romeo and Juliet featured heavily throughout) and many of the plot devices employ tactics commonly found in plays of the Elizabethan age: cross-dressing disguises, mistaken identities, suspicions of adultery, sword fighting, a comedic nurse, and even visions of ghosts are all present, as is the enduring “play-within-a-play” convention that Shakespeare fondly adopted for many of his works. Overall, Shakespeare in Love delivers a delightfully crowd-pleasing, deeply romantic, and highly adventurous tale of love and drama in Renaissance-era England.
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Creative Team
Producers: Vinnie Sestito and Gwyneth Sestito
Director: Vinnie Sestito
Music Director: Gwyneth Sestito
Choreographer: Emma Bradford-Wilson
Stage Manager: Laurice Macaraeg
Set Designer: Peter Thorman
Lighting Designer: Charlotte Theraud
Location
Fairview Library Theatre
35 Fairview Mall Drive,
North York, ON,
M2J 4S4