Shakespeare plays have been taught in schools all over the world for years. The dialogue in his plays has captivated a wide audience. But with the Old English style of writing, young people find it hard to understand the messages behind Shakespeare’s plays. Because of this, There have been movies, books, and plays that have taken an original Shakespeare piece and been changed to fit a more current time.

The Guthrie Theater in now showing the Shakespeare’s comedy “A Winter’s Tale”. The setting of the play has changed from its original to the 1960’s era.  The Director Joe Dowling has been known to change the script of original plays. This is not the first time that a William Shakespeare play has been changed from the original.

The South High Theater also did a revised version of the Shakespeare classic “Hamlet” called “Zombie Hamlet” in October. Sophomore Brianna McCurry was an actor in the play. “I think [revised Shakespear plays] can be kind of cool,” stated McCurry. “You can explore different aspects of the play.”

There are various movies that are based off of Shakespeare plays, but have been edited to fit more current times. One example is “Gnomeo and Juliet” which opened in 2011. The movie is has the same plot as the original Shakespeare play but the difference is the there are gnomes as main characters and it is set in a American Suburb.

Michelle Telshow, a freshman English teacher at South, is currently teaching Shakespeare to her classes. Changing the plot of Shakespeare can be used as a tool to attract people to it who wouldn’t be interested otherwise. Telshow says that “a lot of people have a hard time getting into classic Shakespeare.”

One example of getting people into classic Shakespeare is through Hip-Hip music. The London based youth theater group “The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company” takes lines from Shakespeare plays and rap the lines. Currently, English teacher Nicole Schneider lets her english classes watch some of the footage from Hip-Hop Shakespeare. With all adaption made to Shakespeare plays, Schneider says that “It’s not over-done.”