The Bard in the Borderlands

In 1597, the first published edition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet rolled off the printing press. Only a year later, the Spanish colony of Santa Fe was established. While you might not immediately think Shakespeare had much to do with the Latinx experience, Shakespeare’s career and the Spanish conquest of the Americas fit into a similar timeline.

The Bard in the Borderlands, a three-volume anthology of plays by Chicanx and Indigenous playwrights, explores the possibilities of retelling Shakespeare through the culture, language, and traditions of “la frontera,” or “the borderlands.” Simply defined by co-editor Katherine Gillen as “land that was once Mexico, but… became part of the United States” after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, there is very little “simple” about the history of this region. Its complex blend of identities and experiences are expressed in fantastic transformations of Shakespeare’s work, from a re-imagining of The Tempest set in a Houston school gymnasium to Macbeth's Weird Sisters practicing brujería.

In this episode, editors Kathryn Vomero Santos and Katherine Gillen and contributing playwright Andrew Siañez-De La O discuss how these works speak to Mexican American and Indigenous traditions—and what it means to create “a stranger Shakespeare.”

From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 8, 2026. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Technical support was provided by Harter Music in San Antonio, Gideon Brower in Baltimore, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Web production was handled by Megan Fraedrich. Transcripts are edited by Leonor Fernandez. Production support was provided by Steven Jackson. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, In