New World Shakespeare Company produces classic scripts with modern interpretations to relate to audiences more directly. Each production benefits a charitable campaign for a local cause that relates to the theme of the show.

New World Shakespeare Company

This production of Much Ado About Nothing is proud to support:

Much Ado About Nothing

Company Note

Looking back to some of the most compelling and entertaining romantic stories told in theater
and film, we see stories of gender equality. Modern day comedies reflect that tradition, their
self-aware plots and metacentric humor a way to critique our sunny views on romance and the
sexes. It is in this way that Much Ado About Nothing , with all its forthright skepticism and candid
study of male and female politics, remains so bracingly relevant to this day.

At the end of the second act, Benedick has been (lovingly) tricked into believing that Beatrice
has feelings for him. He needles around the idea, talking himself into abandoning his former
antimony toward marriage. His speech comes across almost as one remonstrating with
increased vehemence with his own conscience. “The world must be peopled,” he reasons, as
though this were a clinching riposte with which to convince his obdurate opponent (himself),
only to return a moment later with a placating, face-saving, “When I said I would die a bachelor,
I did not think I would live till I were married.” This wealth of comedic humanity is not only
dizzyingly fun for actors to perform, but audience members easily recognize a trope as old as
time: the older man resistant to marriage who is really just a big softie perhaps not so deep down.

Apart from all the fun lies a darker and more insidious trope all too familiar: the hatred,
misunderstanding, and denial of female sexuality. Students of Elizabethan-speak will recognize
the double meaning of the title that hints at the play’s more brutal underbelly. The young
romantic lead, Hero, is manipulated, cajoled, and tortured through the action of the play, and
many of the men who perpetrate these wrongs go unpunished and even ultimately rewarded
with her hand in marriage. It is a sad truth that this also rings true for today’s women, who can
identify all too well with Beatrice’s repeated wish, “O that I were a man!”

The strength of this story lies not only in the script but in its telling. In New World Shakespeare
Company’s production of Much Ado, obstacles were met with all the resiliency and fortitude of
these 17th-century women. It is a pleasure for producers to see a company of players so
committed to telling this resonant tale that they faced vicissitude head-on and with smiles on
their faces. This production has been a special one, and it is our pleasure to present it to you.