Express Yourself Bassanio

COMPANY OR GROUP: Stone Soup Shakespeare SHOW: 2020 Pandemic Creative Challenge

Through a friend, Julia Stemper, doing theater work in Chicago I was invited to create a video piece during the isolated days of Covid-19. I was stationed in Houston, and used every meager resource I could to create a video shoot of sorts. Took about a month and a half to finish, so hats off to all of the Youtube creators out there in the world.

The challenge was to either perform a Madonna song as a shakespearean performer or character; or to turn a Madonna song into a Shakespeare speech. I chose the latter, and created a mashup music video featuring the text from Portia in Act 3 Scene 2 of The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare. The music is clips of Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself.’

This is less a critical reading/performance of the text and much more a tribute to youtube culture and an attempt at an entertaining video for young people. Hope you enjoy!