Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

In Mike Lew's play "Teenage Dick," Richard, a high-school senior with cerebral palsy, is determined to become class president by any means necessary. Commissioned by theater artist Gregg Mozgala and The Apothetae, the company Mogzala started to explore the disabled experience, Lew's comedy drops Shakespeare's "Richard III" in a modern American high school. Barbara Bogaev interview Lew about about the play’s origins, tropes around disability, and how his story reframes Richard's motivations. Teenage Dick will be onstage three times this fall and winter, in a production directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel: at Washington, DC's Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company September 22 – October 17, at Boston's Huntington Theater December 3 – January 9, and at California's Pasadena Playhouse February 1 – February 27. Mike Lew is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, The Mellon Foundation Playwright-in-Residence at Ma-Yi Theater in New York, and the former La Jolla Playhouse Artist-in-Residence. His plays include Tiger Style!, Bike America