Shylock the First by
*Winner: "Top 6" Finalist, Dayton Playhouse 2021 FutureFest
Monologue from this play published in THE BEST MEN'S STAGE MONOLOGUES 2020 (Smith & Kraus)
Will the real Shylock please stand up? Who played him? Why did Shakespeare invent him? Were there secret Jews in the background? History doesn't say. So . . . London, 1598, late June. Twenty-one-year-old Will Hatcher...
Monologue from this play published in THE BEST MEN'S STAGE MONOLOGUES 2020 (Smith & Kraus)
Will the real Shylock please stand up? Who played him? Why did Shakespeare invent him? Were there secret Jews in the background? History doesn't say. So . . . London, 1598, late June. Twenty-one-year-old Will Hatcher...
*Winner: "Top 6" Finalist, Dayton Playhouse 2021 FutureFest
Monologue from this play published in THE BEST MEN'S STAGE MONOLOGUES 2020 (Smith & Kraus)
Will the real Shylock please stand up? Who played him? Why did Shakespeare invent him? Were there secret Jews in the background? History doesn't say. So . . . London, 1598, late June. Twenty-one-year-old Will Hatcher, Shakespeare's beloved protege, has been cast to play a Jew called Shylock. With two days till the play opens, Will struggles over this character who seems more monster than man. He pleads with Shakespeare to revise Shylock, for two reasons: as an actor, he cannot find a way to play him; as a man, he fears that playing such a role will jeopardize something he only now reveals to his mentor. He is in love with Sosannah Lopez, a converso whose family remains proud of its Jewish ancestry. Complications abound (a backstabbing best friend; a love triangle involving Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady”; a “Meet the Parents” fiasco) as comedy and drama propel us through this story of forbidden love.
Monologue from this play published in THE BEST MEN'S STAGE MONOLOGUES 2020 (Smith & Kraus)
Will the real Shylock please stand up? Who played him? Why did Shakespeare invent him? Were there secret Jews in the background? History doesn't say. So . . . London, 1598, late June. Twenty-one-year-old Will Hatcher, Shakespeare's beloved protege, has been cast to play a Jew called Shylock. With two days till the play opens, Will struggles over this character who seems more monster than man. He pleads with Shakespeare to revise Shylock, for two reasons: as an actor, he cannot find a way to play him; as a man, he fears that playing such a role will jeopardize something he only now reveals to his mentor. He is in love with Sosannah Lopez, a converso whose family remains proud of its Jewish ancestry. Complications abound (a backstabbing best friend; a love triangle involving Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady”; a “Meet the Parents” fiasco) as comedy and drama propel us through this story of forbidden love.