Southern Fried Shakespeare: A Dramatic Musical Comedy Experience

Welcome y'all! This is a completely unsanctioned and unconventional interpretation of some of the works of William Shakespeare. If you are a purist be forewarned! I have always been fascinated with the written works of William Shakespeare. I remember as a child my father had a huge hard cover edition of his plays and sonnets and I would struggle with some of the words and meanings. In those pre-Google days one had to resort to a dictionary which sometimes did not contain all the mysterious words. The rare live performance I would witness was an equally challenging task as the British accents combined with the lambic pentameter rhythm left me struggling to understand words let alone the meaning which of course ruins the enjoyment of live theatre. Many years later while studying acting we of course revisited his works among other classics. While memorizing lines I would try various characters and accents. For Richard III famous opening monologue I settled on an genteel aristocrat from the Southern United States. I shared with my instructor and after some initial eye rolls he did agree that, at least for me, the character's subtext and even the sentence structure seemed be more easily conveyed. Fast forward another 10 years and I had created a live one man show called Southern Fried Shakespeare, a dramatic musical comedy experience. I created characters that may or may not have any semblance of the ones the Bard intended. I wrote original songs that I believe express the emotion and underlying intentions of the pieces. And of course what's a variety show without an MC or two. In this case two squabbling siblings Auntie Bella and her twin brother Beauregard. During the COVID pandemic I decided to record an audio version of the show. I hope you enjoy my family of misfits as much as I did creating them. But hey, to thine own taste be true. Cousin Willy must have had a sense of humor to write some of this stuff!

© 2024 Robert James Lopez (Audiobook): 9798347726356

Release date

Audiobook: 18 December 2024