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Saturday, May 1, 2010

Such Tweet Sorrow: A Modern Twist on Classic Theatre

Okay, I’m sure we have all seen adaptations of classic Shakespeare plays that we would consider strange or “out-there.” However, none of these modern adaptations measure up to the newest twist on Shakespeare, Such Tweet Sorrow, a 5-week performance of a modern take on Romeo & Juliet that has found its stage at quite an unexpected venue: Twitter.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has formed a partnership with Mudlark, a cross-platform production company to bring this strange albeit creative concept to life. The production stars 6 RSC actors who tweet dialogue in real-time (GMT) through the use of scripted character diaries written by Mudlark’s writing team of Tim Wright and Bethan Marlow. Under the direction of RSC’s Roxana Silbert, the production began on April 10 and will close its curtain on May 15.

The six characters of the performance: Romeo, Juliet, Laurence, Mercutio, Tybalt, Jess and Jargo will be tweeting thoughts, messages, links or confessions over the remaining two weeks of the performance. However, if you’re a little behind and missed the first few acts, you can catch up by visiting http://suchtweetsorrow.com to learn about the cast and crew, get performance recaps and visit the live tweeting timeline to stay updated on all of the drama that has yet to unfold.

As a personal Shakespeare fanatic, I am incredibly pleased to see that people are continuing to find new ways to reinvent and modernize classical works of art to make them more accessible to contemporary audiences.

What do you think? Do you think Twitter is the newest stage for storytelling and theatre or have we gone too far? In the words of the late great Shakespeare himself, “To tweet, or not to tweet?”

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member, Niki Ianni.

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