Swingin' the Dream, RSC, review: when Louis Armstrong was cast as Bottom as jazz met Shakespeare
Louis Armstrong starred in a very unusual production of A Midsummer Night's Dream Credit: Haywood Magee How heartening to see – shock! - a company of actors and musicians onstage at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford again. Performing Shakespeare? It ain’t necessarily so. On Saturday, for less than an hour, Swingin’ the Dream revisited a fascinating, little-known chapter of artistic fusion, when the Bard collided with the Jazz Age. In December 1939, Broadway briefly saw an epic version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring an “integrated” company of more than 100. Louis A...
Source: telegraph.co.uk