EditorialPap, a ghost played by Billy Eugene Jones, center, pops up from the grill in a scene that includes Nikki Crawford, left, and Marcel Spears in “Fat Ham,” at the American Airlines Theatre in New York, March 20, 2023. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialPap, a ghost played by Billy Eugene Jones, center, pops up from the grill in a scene that includes Nikki Crawford, left, and Marcel Spears in “Fat Ham,” at the American Airlines Theatre in New York, March 20, 2023. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialMadeleine Mantock, who plays the role based on William Shakespeare’s wife in “Hamnet,” in her dressing room at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, March 30, 2023. (Lauren Fleishman/The New York Times)
EditorialBrittany Bradford and Thomas Sadoski perform a scene in “Wedding Band” at Polonsky Shakespeare Center in New York, April 22, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialBrittany Bradford and Thomas Sadoski perform a scene in “Wedding Band” at Polonsky Shakespeare Center in New York, April 22, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialAllan Clayton, left, and John Relyea in Brett Dean and Matthew Jocelyn’s “Hamlet” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on May 10, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialStark Sands, left, as Shakespeare and Betsy Wolfe as Anne Hathaway in “Juliet” at the Stephen Sondheim Theater in Manhattan, Oct. 26, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialDavid Strathairn in a scene from “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” a solo show presented by Theater for a New Audience at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, on Sept. 8, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialA sign in Shakespeare, Ontario, near Stratford, a small city that draws legions of tourists, on Aug. 21, 2022. (Brett Gundlock/The New York Times)
EditorialPeople perform in the Public Works adaptation of “As You Like It” at the Delacorte Theater in New York, Aug. 16, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
Editorial Actors and crew members for the Public Works production of “As You Like It” at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, in New York on Aug. 19, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
EditorialPat Carroll backstage in 1990 at the Folger Shakespeare Theater in Washington, where she played Falstaff in “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
EditorialDanai Gurira as Richard and Daniel J. Watts as a henchman in “Richard III,” at the Delacorte Theate in New York, June 23, 2022. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)