History Theatre / TheCompleteWorksOfWilliamShakespeareAbridged

The play has NoFourthWall, requires performers to [[HarpoDoesSomethingFunny make it up as they go]], and audience participation. This means the likelihood of two shows (even from the same company of actors) being the same twice is very low, if not outright impossible. Unusually for a modern play, performers are ''not'' under contract to be as true to the script as possible after acquiring performance rights.

* LongTitle: The condensed version of Shakespeare's tragedies, titled ''The Comedy of Two Well-Measured Gentlemen Lost in the Merry Wives of Venice on a Midsummer’s Twelfth Night in Winter''. Or, alternatively, ''Cymbeline Taming Pericles the Merchant in the Tempest of Love as Much as You Like It for Nothing''. (The third proposed title is ''Four Weddings and a Transvestite'', which doesn't count.)

* LongTitle: The condensed version of Shakespeare's tragedies, titled ''The Comedy of Two Well-Measured Gentlemen
Lost in the Merry Wives of Venice on a Midsummer’s Twelfth Night in Winter''. Or, alternatively, ''Cymbeline Taming Pericles the Merchant in the Tempest of Love as Much as You Like It for Nothing''. (The third proposed title is ''Four Weddings and a Transvestite'', which doesn't count.)

* GratuitousRap: The Othello performance. Used because Othello is a moor.

--> '''Macduff:''' And know that Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd! What'd you think aboot that, lad?

* CriticalResearchFailure: InUniverse example comes from Adam. When the others leave Adam on his own to research Othello, he concludes that the "moor" referred to in the title is where you tie up a boat.
** He also believes that ''Hamlet'' was not written by Shakespeare.
-->'''Adam''': It's a Mel Gibson movie!
** A more straight example is displayed in the Othello rap. While it's certainly ''clever'', it gets quite a few details about the play bizarrely wrong, such as stating that Iago's hatred of Othello was down to him (Iago) being in love with Desdemona (while Iago gives several excuses for his behaviour, that is never one of them...). Some productions change the line to "and ''Othello'' loved Desi like Adonis loved Venus," which is more correct.

* WholesomeCrossdresser: Averted if the troupe in question [[DistaffCounterpart casts a woman as Adam's role]].

* AdaptationAlmagamation: The group accuses Shakespeare's comedies of having RecycledWithAGimmick plots and decide to "condense" all 16 of them into a single play.

* NiceShoes: The cast traditionally wears Converse hi-tops. Given the sheer physicality of the show, this is as much a practical choice as it is an aesthetic one.

* NoFourthWall: Taken UpToEleven. Not only does the cast constantly address the crowd, but they also drag members onstage (willingly or not), steal their seats, sit on their laps, pretend to vomit on them, and in one (brief) case, take a member hostage.

* GratuitousRap: The Othello performance. Used because [[ValuesDissonance Othello is a moor.]]

* {{Troperiffic}}: As an UrExample of TheAbridgedSeries, the play uses just about every [[AbridgedSeriesTropes Abridged Series Trope]] despite [[OlderThanTheyThink predating the genre by 19 years]].

* NoTalkingOrPhonesWarning: The company not only warns the audience to turn off cell phones and pagers but demonstrates how to use the oxygen masks that will fall from the ceiling in case of pressure loss in the theater. In the "Revised" edition, there is a CallBack (literally) at the start of Act II, when the character who gave the warning has ''his own cell phone'' go off in the middle of his speech to the audience.

** A more straight example is displayed in the Othello rap. While it's certainly ''clever'', it gets quite a few details about the play bizarrely wrong, such as stating that Iago's hatred of Othello was down to him (Iago) being in love with Desdemona (while Iago gives several excuses for his behaviour, that is never one of them...).

* RageQuit: When the aforementioned [[LameExcuse Lame Excuses]] get him nowhere, Adam storms off the stage, insisting that Austin and Reed do ''Hamlet'' while he just watches.

* LameExcuse: Adam tries arguing first that the football game has left him too drained to do ''Hamlet'' and then that his encounter with a kid in the audience has him on edge.

* HarpoDoesSomethingFunny: Numerous places in the script. Before {{Intermission}}, Daniel's stage direction is "[he] Stalls" with a footnote describing the absurd things previous productions have done to entertain the audience.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: "Shakespeare's plays have been reimagined on the lunar landscape, Nazi prisoner-of-war camps, and even Vancouver."

Three actors (male in the video and the original troupe), with the use of costumes, bad wigs, and more wordplay and slapstick comedy than you can shake a rubber skull at, reenact the entirety of the works of Creator/WilliamShakespeare within the time frame of a two-act stageplay. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity most DEFINITELY ensues]].

This was originally created by the Creator/ReducedShakespeareCompany (the specific original writers being Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Creator/JessWinfield), but has since been sold/given to/adapted by a wide variety of comedy troupes and theatre companies.

The play has NoFourthWall, requires performers to [[HarpoDoesSomethingFunny make it up as they go]] and audience participation. This means the likelihood of two shows (even from the same company of actors) being the same twice is very low, if not outright impossible. Unusually for a modern play, performers are ''not'' under contract to be as true to the script as possible after acquiring performance rights.

That said, the script has three roles named for the actors who originally performed the piece: Daniel (the troupe leader), Jess (the scholar/serious actor), and Adam (comic relief; plays nearly all the female parts). Actors usually perform using their own names, since the script occasionally has them address or refer to each other.

* CriticalResearchFailure: InUniverse example comes from Adam. When the others leave Adam on his own to research Othello, he comes to the conclusion that the "moor" referred to in the title is where you tie up a boat.

** In some performances the it's played for DeliberateValuesDissonance, with one member of the troupe clearly uncomfortable with this (until he forgets); usually the same one who was embarassed about even ''attempting'' Othello due to being "melanin challenged".

** At least in the home video release, during the "EPILOGUE!" finish to ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', Adam plays a guitar while intoning background music to the spoken narration. The song he sings is the 'Love Theme' from Creator/FrancoZeffirelli's [[Film/RomeoAndJuliet1968 1968 adaptation]]. The others join in at the end:

** Keep in mind that the above line is not actually spoken by Ophelia, but by the audience representing her inner monologue.

* NoTalkingOrPhonesWarning: The company not only warns the audience to turn off cell phones and pagers, but demonstrates how to use the oxygen masks that will fall from the ceiling in case of pressure loss in the theater. In the "Revised" edition, there is a CallBack (literally) at the start of Act II, when the character who gave the warning has ''his own cell phone'' go off in the middle of his speech to the audience.

-->The fairies and the pages get into a knock down fight in the mud!\\

* RadioDrama: The play was adapted into a six-part radio series in Britain, with episodes dealing with Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, the remainder of the tragedies, the comedies, the histories and the life of William Shakespeare. The format effectively doubled the length of the stage show and enabled the troupe to expand jokes and add new material. This included "special guests" (Reed "impersonating" people like Oprah and Helena Bonham Carter), more raps and recreations of the origins of the Capulet/Montague feud and the lost Shakespeare play "Cardenio".

* ShownTheirWork: Underneath all the silliness is a very thorough understanding of Shakespeare's work. The show actually makes for a pretty decent introduction to the Bard.

* SubliminalSeduction: Just before performing Hamlet backwards, Austin says [[SarcasmMode "Be sure to listen for the Satanic messages!"]]

* UnusualEuphemism: The annotated version makes the claim that in Elizabethan England, men commonly sharpened their penises and used them as tools (such as [[IncrediblyLamePun boning knives]]) or weapons, giving the phrase "profaners of this neighbor-stained steel" an entirely different meaning.

This was originally created by The Creator/ReducedShakespeareCompany, but has since been sold/given to/adapted by a wide variety of comedy troupes and theatre companies.

** In their [[http://vimeo.com/28343530 30th Anniversary Retrospective]], however, they admit that they weren't the first to come up with the idea of shortening things for humorous effect. Specifically (JustForFun/ZerothLawOfTropeExamples, anyone?), in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" the performance of ''Pyramis and Thisbe'' by Bottom and his friends.

* PoliceCodeForEverything: In the radio show version a "Elizabethan Plot Device #37" covers all of the plot points in the final act of ''RomeoAndJuliet''.

** At least in the home video release, during the "EPILOGUE!" finish to ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', Adam plays a guitar while intoning background music to the spoken narration. The song he sings is the 'Love Theme' from Creator/FrancoZeffirelli's 1968 adaptation. The others join in at the end:

** In their [[http://vimeo.com/28343530 30th Anniversary Retrospective]], however, they admit that they weren't the first to come up with the idea of shortening things for humorous effect. Specifically (ZerothLawOfTropeExamples, anyone?), in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" the performance of ''Pyramis and Thisbe'' by Bottom and his friends.