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Dramaturg Kate McConnell says that in playwright Amelia Roper’s translation of the text, “the clumsily abrupt or shallow-feeling changes of direction and emotion shown by Shakespeare’s characters are translated to the supercharged ups and downs of adolescent boys, all-too-relatable and quite theatrically effective.” She says this translation offers “a new sort of life to these plays, shaping a unique chance to feel like we’re truly hearing them as Shakespeare’s audience might have more than 400 years ago.”
Playwright
Amelia Roper
Playwright and TV writer. Amelia writes for Netflix, Apple, Hulu, FX. Latest credits include writer / co producer on The Great S1 and S2 with Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, created by Tony McNamara (The Favourite). She’s developing an Aussie TV adaptation of Richard III for Margot Robbie’s company LuckyChap / Hoodlum. Her first TV job was GLOW for Netflix / Jenji Kohan. Plays have been produced in London, Moscow, Sydney, Melbourne, NYC and around the USA. Amelia is repped by CAA and Grandview and Creative Rep (Australia). She has a BA in History and an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama.
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Dramaturg
Kate McConnell
Kate McConnell received her MFA in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from Yale School of Drama in 2005, specializing in Shakespeare production. She was the dramaturg on Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew at OSF in 2007 and has had the pleasure of contributing a variety of articles to OSF’s various publications in the years since. Kate spent several years as a visiting assistant professor of English and Theater at Colgate University, and while there she continued to work as a freelance dramaturg. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a senior creative director at Thinkwell Group, an experience design company, turning her dramaturgical skills to developing and telling stories in location-based experiences such as museums and theme parks. Some of her notable projects at Thinkwell include The Hunger Games: The Exhibition, Georgia Aquarium’s Aquanaut Adventure, Expo 2020 Dubai, and the new permanent exhibits at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Kate is very excited for this opportunity to take a deep dive into Shakespeare’s language and enjoying the new discoveries and conversations it provokes.
In Print
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
A contemporary translation of one of Shakespeare’s earliest explorations of love and friendship.
In one of his earliest plays, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare began exploring themes of love and friendship that became the focus of some of his greatest works. Amelia Roper’s translation focuses on how the verse sounds—the feeling of the words as spoken by an actor and listened to by an audience. This version offers a new sort of life to the play, letting audiences feel like they’re truly hearing it as Shakespeare’s audience might have more than four hundred years ago.
