←Recommendations of HERO DOGBERRY

Combining the best parts of “Much Ado About Nothing” and “As You Like It,” Monica Cross’ skillful Shakespeare adaptation “HERO DOGBERRY” is a marvelous feat of playwriting craft. The heightened language is never alienating and the verse is so seamlessly written you can focus on each vividly drawn character and tightly plotted scene Cross offers. A feast for Bard lovers and newbies alike!

“Hero Dogberry” is a goddamned delight. It is also a genuine masterpiece. Not only is it a genius companion piece to its source material, but it truly stands on its own as a tremendous tale of mischief, trust, deceit, masking, and how they all intertwine in the development of love and marriage. Amid the countless winks to classic Bard bits and sequences, Cross shines spotlights on what hasn’t aged as well, and examines it playfully and with great nuance. Every role here would be so much fun to bring to life, for actors and designers alike. Highly recommend.

What a delight! If you are a Much Ado fan, this play gives you the scenes you've always wanted, the backstory you've always wondered about, answers to the questions you've had, and most importantly, more time with your favorite characters. This would be wonderful to play in rep with a production of Much Ado.

Interlocking seamlessly with its source play, this companion piece to/feminist interrogation of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is that rarest of things - Shakespearean criticism that's rooted in genuine love of the Bard and appreciation for how his plays actually work. Cross gets everything right - the niceties of when characters speak verse and when they speak prose, the sly improvisations around the metrical pulse, the implacable logic behind the malaproprisms - and her tale of Hero getting herself out of the plight the Bard put her in is a gorgeous, heartfelt complement to the original.

I LOVE this! Cross has borrowed all of the most charming tools in the Bard's dramatic toolbox to craft a clever revision of a beloved play, in which the previously passive Hero (who is "dead" for the majority of the source material) wrenches some power back and reclaims her own story! The verse feels timeless and offers a sense of heightened theatricality without ever impeding understanding... and it's laugh-out-loud hysterical! Characters who do wrong are held accountable, and I love the way the secret identities lead to such an honest, pitch-perfect, cathartic conclusion to a messy situation! Fantastic!

What a charming and smart play! Cross solves so many of the problems Shakespeare gives us, in ways that are consistent with his characters and text, and yet also surprising and delightful. The commitment to upholding and critiquing Shakespeare's text is present in every line.

Her verse is solid and contains rhetorical and metrical tools for actors familiar with Shakespeare's toolbox, but it is also accessible. Strong recommend, and would love to see this in rep with Much Ado!

Much Ado About Nothing has always been my go-to as far as the Bard's plays are concerned, even with it's rough edges. In this adaption, Monica Cross smooths out those edges beautifully, making Hero a woman to be reckoned with, and the subplot involving Margaret, Borachio and Claudio more sympathetic than originally written. Thank you Monica for making a longtime favorite even better!

HERO/DOGBERRY offers all the charms of Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with a shrewdly feminist edge. This companion piece to Much Ado About Nothing reimagines Hero as a protagonist with agency, wit, and fortitude rivaling heroines like Viola and Rosalind. It also addresses Claudio’s maddening lack of accountability in Shakespeare’s play through a climactic scene that’s both satisfying and heart-rending.

Monica Cross deploys an impressive mastery of verse in HERO/DOGBERRY; more than once, I had to check the source material to be sure whether a line was hers or Shakespeare’s.

At the heart of this adaptation is an absolutely brilliant double casting (even more brilliant explaining it as single casting). Like truly inspired. Monica Cross has provided a Shakespeare fanatic such as myself a wonderful new lease on a favorite play. My delight in the new nuances to be explored cannot be fully expressed. Huzzah!