#Drunk shakespeer code#

Notoriously tongue-twisting when dead sober, Drunk Shakespeare takes the bard in a whole new direction. Oddities abound in this clandestine corner in the heart of the theatre district, not least the display of one hundred books, forever encased in amber fluid beside a royal throne.īut the main event really begins when one actor takes to the stage after at least five shots of whiskey.and attempts to perform an entire play by William Shakespeare. Take a journey to the mysterious hidden library on the second floor of a building on 47rd and 8th, behind an imposing ten foot high black bookcase is a secret bar, the meeting place of the infamous Drunk Shakespeare Society!

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#Drunk shakespeer code#

Use code DRUNKCITY at checkout for your discount More performances of Shakespeare than any other company in NY! 'Shakespeare shaken and stirred' - Lonely Planet 'The Best Thing to Ever Happen to The Theater' -Slate Magazine 'Zany, Rowdy and Debaucherous' -New York Times 'A live action Drunk History' -TimeOut Magazine Wabash, 77,, $59, $500 for “King” Experience” (includes champagne and cocktails), 21+.The Hit Theatrical Comedy in the Heart of Broadway Get thee to the bar! One suspects that they’re honoring the Elizabethan tradition, after all. Together, this cast embodies a new kind of “triple threat”-they can make Shakespeare’s dialogue sing, they can ad-lib through the most ridiculous situations, and they can hold their liquor. (Kudos to the bar staff who also kept libations coming for patrons throughout.) You have to be pretty damn smart to make something that sounds this stupid on paper feel exhilarating rather than exhausting. In the tiny speakeasy-library setting of the Lion Theatre (a storefront space located behind the Chicago Theatre), the cast of Drunk Shakespeare moved with adroit wit and physicality throughout the audience seated on benches on either side of the playing area. It takes performers with a sure knowledge of the original story and a firm handle on timing (both in terms of iambics and improv) to not fall off the narrative wagon with a show like this. (The king at my performance stole the show with a proposal-accepted!-post-curtain call.) The other official disrupters are the guests willing to fork over $500 (yikes!) for the special “King” (or “Queen”) package, which gets you a throne, expensive hooch (including a bottle of champagne one performer described as tasting “like what I imagine my mother’s approval feels like”), and the right to interrupt the proceedings and decide if you will “pardon” the night’s drinker or add to their hangover by commanding them to down another shot. The upside to being the designated drunk is that you get to toss monkey wrenches into the performance works from time to time. Thomas Toles as the host kept the proceedings on track while entering scenes in a variety of film genres (action movie, film noir), as commanded by Green. Brooks as Macbeth served up double and triple shots of sexual entendres while bringing in references to everything from Barack and Michelle Obama to The Lion King. On the night I attended, Courtney Rikki Green tackled Lady M with verve, bringing an astounding amount of emotional nuance to the sleepwalking scene, despite the five shots of whiskey she downed before the 90-minute show (enough to make anyone see Birnam Wood moving-though here the forest is represented by the ensemble waving Little Trees air fresheners).

But concerns about liver damage aside, the recently opened Chicago version of this show (created by Scott Griffin and director David Hudson) that’s now in its fifth year in New York brings together a murderers’ row of comedic talent to what is essentially Comedy Central’s Drunk History with a literary twist-served on the rocks, straight up, and with many disgusting variations in between. The moral implications of Drunk Shakespeare, in which a performer gets deliberately plastered before attempting a major role in Macbeth, may feel a bit troubling.