William Shakespeare

Presents a dramatization of William Shakespeare's play, a pastoral romance set in the Forest of Arden in medieval France.

Dramatization of William Shakespeare's tragedy of two young lovers from rival families.

Cruel Angelo is left in charge of Vienna when the Duke pretends to leave town. Angelo revives an old law against fornication and sentences Claudio to death for seducing Juliet, Claudio's betrothed. Claudio's sister, Isabella, pleads for his life and Angelo offers to spare him in exchange for her virginity. Angelo's corruption and severity are punished when the Duke reveals that he has witnessed it all.

Presents a dramatization of William Shakespeare's farce about two pairs of twins involved in an elaborate series of mistaken identities.

Sir John Falstaff, knowing that Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page control the money in their respective households, decides to seduce them, but they learn of his scheme and resolve to make a fool of him. A comic series of disguises and misadventures follows. This program views the Merry wives of Windsor as Shakespeare's attack on middle class propriety and hypocrisy. He challenges the belief that fidelity is mere lip service and a result of arranged, loveless...

Close friends Valentine and Proteus become rivals for the hand of Silvia, daughter of the Duke of Milan, who has promised her to the foolish coward Thurio. Proteus has Valentine banished, but Silvia escapes to the forest to join him. Proteus follows, with Julia who dotes on him. After a confrontation, the Duke eventually allows Valentine and Silvia to wed, and Proteus marries Julia.

Shakespeare may have written Julius Caesar as the first of his plays to be performed at the Globe, in 1599. For it, he turned to a key event in Roman history: Caesar's death at the hands of friends and fellow politicians. Renaissance writers disagreed over the assassination, seeing Brutus, a leading conspirator, as either hero or villain. Shakespeare's play keeps this debate alive.