Latinx Shakespeares Blog
Blogs will be posted periodically, so check back every few months.
Jerry Garcia and His Ties to Shakespeare and to Latinidad
August 20, 2024
August 3rd was Jerry Day, an annual celebration established in San Francisco in 2002 in honor of posthumous Grateful Dead front man and music icon, Jerry Garcia (1942-1995). Garcia wasn’t Latino and he wasn’t involved with Shakespearean performance, but I mention him here for several reasons.
In fact, the only explicit connection that Garcia or the Grateful Dead had to Shakespeare that I am aware of is the song “Althea” (1980). “Althea” was written by Robert Hunter and Garcia composed the musical arrangement. With lyrics taken from Richard Lovelace’s poem, “To Althea, From Prison” (1642, published in 1649) and references to Hamlet, the song has given fans much to ponder.
Before Succession, There Was Cane, the Cuban King Lear TV Series
June 25, 2024
In 2007, a short-lived television series premiered on FOX that starred Puerto Rican actor Héctor Elizondo as Pancho Duque, a Cuban sugar and rum magnate in Miami. Elizondo, known to most audiences as the hotel manager Barney from Pretty Woman (1990) and as Dr. Phillip Watters on Chicago Hope (1994-2000), is married to Amalia, played by Rita Moreno, who gets by far too little screen time. I referenced this series in my recent essay, “Accruing Gravitas, or Why There Isn’t a Latino King Lear (Yet),” about the absolute lack of Latinx King Lear adaptations and Elizondo as the only Latino actor to play a Lear-style role, in Cane and in the 2001 light-hearted film, Tortilla Soup.
Adapting Austen: Sense and Sensibility and From Prada to Nada
June 13, 2023
Revisting the 2011 film, From Prada to Nada, a Latinx adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, set in Los Angeles.
Latinos Performing Shakespeare: The Golden Girls Episode
April 29, 2023
My thoughts on re-watching The Golden Girls episode that has a Cuban boxer reciting, "Hath not a Cuban eyes?"
The Globe of the Great Southwest
March 7, 2023
Guest essayist, Yvette Chairez, writes about The Globe of the Great Southwest in Odessa, Texas. It opened in the 1960s and remains an active theater today.
Latinas and Shakespeare in the 1970s
February 20, 2023
Following the death of Raquel Welch last week, and the passing of Irene Cara last November, I devote this blog to Latinas who intersected with Shakespeare in the 1970s.
Latinx Shakespeares in the United Kingdom
January 10, 2023
For my first blog, I write about Latinx Shakespeares in the UK.
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