by Mike Lew
A darkly comic, smashed-up retelling of Richard III, Shakespeare's classic tale about the lust for power, Teenage Dick reimagines the most famous disabled character of all time as a high-school outsider in junior year: the deepest winter of his discontent.
Picked on because of his disability (as well as his sometimes creepily Shakespearean way of speaking), Richard is determined to have his revenge and make his name by becoming president of the senior class. But like all teenagers, and all despots, he is faced with the hardest question of all: is it better to be loved, or feared?
Mike Lew's play Teenage Dick was commissioned and developed by The Apothetae, a company dedicated to plays that explore and illuminate the 'Disabled Experience'. It was first performed by Ma-Yi Theater Company at the Public Theater, New York, in 2018, and received its UK premiere at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in December 2019, directed by Artistic Director Michael Longhurst.
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