Transgender Shakespeare Performance: A Holistic Dramaturgy

Shakespeare's plays have long been viewed as a space where the boundaries of binary gendered sex, sexuality, and desire become murky. However, the contemporary social justice call for trans/gender-inclusivity has been ambivalently integrated into standing conventions of the Shakespeare theater. This essay close reads reviews and advertising materials to argue that contemporary Shakespeare performance is space in which a public makes meaning of gender nonconformism; as such, it is vital for performance institutions to become self-aware of their role in potential education or misrecognition. Recent productions at the African-American Shakespeare Company, the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and the California Shakespeare Theater offer examples of complex and holistic strategies for engaging transgender themes through staging, casting, and outreach programming.