New Play Shakes Up Shakespeare

Britney and the bard? It may seem like an odd pairing, but to a Romeoville playwright, it’s just crazy enough to work.

Erika Grotto is hoping to raise enough money to stage her first production, “Shaking Spears,” a musical that sets the tragedies of William Shakespeare to the music of Britney Spears.

“It’s ridiculous,” Grotto said with a laugh.

The journalist-turned-technical editor took four of Shakespeare’s best-known tragedies — "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Julius Caesar" — and set them to some of Britney’s biggest hits. For Grotto, an experienced musical theater performer, it was a chance to try something new.

“I’ve written plays before … but the other things I’ve done have been more theatrical and serious,” she said. But a trip to see an unconventional play changed that.

Grotto went to see “Carpenters Halloween,” a Chicago production that combined the music of the Carpenters with John Carpenter’s horror classic  “Halloween.”

“It was hilarious,” she said. “You would never expect those things to go together, but they do.”

At the urging of a director friend, Grotto said she decided to try her hand at writing her own musical comedy.

“He said he would really like to do a show that has well-known music and a well-known story that didn’t go together,” she said. 

In what was a stroke of madness, genius or both, Grotto hit upon the idea of pairing the music of the pop princess with Shakespeare’s classics. The story quickly came together, she said.

“[Shakespeare’s] scenes are timeless — it’s such a cliché, but it’s true,” Grotto said. “His themes are so easy to apply [to the modern day].”

While she wasn’t a big Spears fan, Grotto also said she had little trouble weaving Britney’s songs into the story. For example, Grotto said, it was a natural to have Ophelia, the tragic heroine of “Hamlet,” sing Spears’ hit “(You Drive Me) Crazy” as she delves into madness.

“I know when people hear [the songs], they’re going to laugh,” Grotto said. She hopes audiences will have the same reaction when — and if — the story comes to life this winter.

The cast came together after Grotto invited some friends to come over and read through what she’d written.

“I wanted to see if it was funny,” she said. When her friends, many of them theater veterans from Bolingbrook’s Theatre-on-the-Hill, laughed out loud, she knew she had something.

“They kept asking me, ‘When are we going to do this again?’” With that, Grotto realized she had a cast — all she needed was a place to stage the performance.

Grotto, who said she was hesitant to divulge too many details until the production is officially booked, plans to stage “Shaking Spears” at a small Naperville theater in February.

But first, she’s hoping to raise money to help fund the production.

Kickstarting the show

Earlier this month, Grotto launched her fundraising efforts on Kickstarter.com, soliciting donations to help pay the costs of staging the show. Her goal is to reach $1,000.

“It’s doing pretty well so far,” she said. With fundraising just shy of the halfway mark, there are 36 days left for Grotto to hit her goal.

If she does, the play will go off without a hitch. But if she fails to hit the mark, Grotto said, she won’t receive a dime.

“On kickstarter.com, you set a fundraising goal,” she explained. “If you don’t get that amount, you don’t get anything.”

For more about the play, or to donate, visit Grotto’s kickster.com page.

Whatever happens, Grotto and her cast are having fun, she said.

“I’m excited because they’re all excited,” she said. “This whole thing kind of happened by accident ... Luckily, I have a lot of veterans working with me.”