Swagger

The great producer Harold Prince used to say, “Musicals should be dangerous!”–pushing the boundaries beyond what audiences may expect. In our new musical “Swagger,” William Shakespeare is a man who pushes the boundaries — in art and life. Deciding it’s time to set the record straight (ahem) about who he really was, he takes us back to London in the year 1600 to reveal his secret love for Alazar Ya’aqob, an Ethiopian Ambassador and how this dangerous relationship taught him about the soul-crushing pain of loving true and inspired him to write one of his greatest plays. 

Time-traveling with Will is current-day Shakespeare fanboy Quinn and they encounter a hardscrabble world filled with over-the-top drama and the rowdiest company of actors in doublets this side of the Globe. Just as Shakespeare becomes a surrogate father to Quinn (whose own father is emotionally distant), Quinn soon becomes a surrogate son to Shakespeare (whose only son Hamnet died at eleven). They learn from each other that their shared humanity can help them transcend cultures and centuries.

As in Elizabethan times, we’d like our musical to be performed on a bare stage with the men in Shakespeare’s acting company doubling up to play almost all the secondary roles, including that of a dazzling, no-holds-barred Queen Elizabeth I who knows how to slay a runway (“Yas queen!”). 

Ultimately, “Swagger” is about standing up to danger and pushing boundaries and how to be — or not to be — our own Shakespeare in every day of our lives.