About the Project
Gather round ye merry lot, and lend us thy ears! The year is 1603. The place is London. The great Queen Elizabeth I has just passed, setting up King James of Scotland to take the throne. This Royal Merger betwixt countries has set the stage for restructuring, layoffs, and neck slicing across the land. Enter William Shakespeare. If The Bard and his buddies want to keep getting funding for their silly little plays, they will have to appease their new boss. The only problem? James is no Elizabeth, and getting him to care about theater is like getting a horse to care about theater. Or about anything besides hay. So, strap on your canker blossoms and wet those quills, it’s time to learn about how Shakespeare and company wrote one of his greatest plays ever on the way to becoming THE KING’S MEN.
The King’s Men is a satirical farce written in response to the current tumultuous climate in Hollywood (and beyond). As writers in the year 2025, we felt barreled down by the constant doom-and-gloom headlines of collapsing studios and robot takeovers in the industry we love. When art meets business, it’s a timeless and seemingly neverending struggle to come out on top. Shakespeare had to do it too! Except instead of corporate overlords, he had to please a heavenly-appointed monarch who was even more fickle and petty than Wall Street. After a deep dive into Jacobean history, we created this sharply accurate and authentic depiction of the very real struggles that William and his company had to endure in order to create their magnum opus – Macbeth!
Production Team
