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Latinx Shakespeares Blog

Blogs written for LatinxShakespeares.Org and short essays for other online sites

"Latinx Shakespeares of the 20th Century"

by Carla Della Gatta

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​Published in the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare & Beyond series
October 10, 2025
West Side Story 1961 film
hispanic shakespeare

"Bilingual Shakespeares"

by Carla Della Gatta

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​Published in the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare & Beyond series
September 16, 2025
West Side Story 1961 film
Bilingual Shakespeare
bilingual theatre
bilingual theatre

"Staging Bilingual Classical Theatre"

by Carla Della Gatta

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Available online at HowlRound Theatre Commons
Originally published on September 15, 2020
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Jerry Garcia Latino, Grateful Dead Shakespeare, Jerry Garcia Hispanic, Grateful Dead Macbeth, Jerry Garcia Shakespeare

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.

"Race and the Classics:
An Argument for Empathy"

by Carla Della Gatta and Harvey Young

Published online in Theatre Topics, July 2024

Jose Ferrer Othello; Jose Ferrer Iago

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.

Cane Jimmy Smits, Latino King Lear, Cane Hector Elizondo, Cane Rita Moreno
West Side Story 2021 film

"West Side Story: A new take on Romeo and Juliet, 60 years later"

by Carla Della Gatta

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From the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare & Beyond series
Originally published on January 4, 2022
West Side Story fire escape

"West Side Story:

60 Years as a Cultural Barometer"

by Carla Della Gatta

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From the Folger Shakespeare Library's Shakespeare & Beyond series
Originally published on October 19, 2021
in honor of the 40th anniversary of the film
West Side Story 1961 film
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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.

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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?"

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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.

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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.

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Latinx Shakespeares in the United Kingdom

January 10, 2023

For my first blog, I write about Latinx Shakespeares in the UK.

LatinxShakespeares.Org is a non-profit site.
This is an online, living, and growing archive of Latinx Theatre Adaptation. 

Please credit all artists and scholars appropriately.

Please cite the archive in your dramaturgical and scholarly research.

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All images and ephemera have been posted with permission from theaters and artists.

They may not be reproduced or re-posted without permission.

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I built and paid for this site myself because of my love for theatre and theatre-makers.

I will be managing it as editor and adding to it each month.

All donations go to maintenance of the site.

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©2022 by Carla Della Gatta

Shakespeare performance; Shakespeare adaptation; Latinx theatre; theatre archives; Shakespeare and Race; ShakeRace; Latino Shakespeare; Latinx Shakespeare; Bilingual Shakespeare; Spanish Shakespeare; Hamlet Latino; Macbeth Latino; Othello Latino; Hispanic Hamlet; Hispanic Shakespeare: bilingual theatre; Latinx adaptation; Puerto Rican Shakespeare; Cuban Shakespeare; Chicano Shakespeare; Chicanx Shakespeare, Boricua Shakespeare; Romeo y Julieta Shakespeare; bilingual dramaturgy

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