Director, Producer, and Script Adaptor Will Pewitt is leading an interdisciplinary array of students to create an original multilingual version of Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy Othello. With performances scheduled for Fall 2023, script work has been ongoing for over a full year based on the concept developed by the Director, who is faculty in UNF's Department of English and Hicks Honors College.
With a background in Arabic translation, Professor Pewitt’s initial idea has been for each of the characters in Shakespeare’s most cross-cultural play to speak lines in what would have been their historically accurate languages. Having overseen script work for several prior UNF Shakespeare shows, this particular production breaks new ground by incorporating linguistic diversity of five separate languages — English, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, and Greek — with editing and translating involving students from all over the University working alongside the Director.
As the script is now finalized, the production is now gearing up for its Fall 2023 show run with a cast and crew from all over UNF taking part in the myriad tasks of stage managing, set building, art directing, scheduling, dramaturgy, acting, designing, and marketing. With students majoring in disciplines as far afield as Engineering, Psychology, Film, Biology, English, Classical Voice, Business, Communication, and Computer Science, Professor Pewitt intends for the show to highlight not just the continuing fresh resonances that can be brought to life from pre-modern literature but also the interactive ways students from different departments can inform and impact one another.
The show tours to different locations in Northeast Florida each weekend, starting at MOCA Jacksonville on Oct. 20 and wrapping on Nov. 17 at UNF’s Lazzara Performance Hall. Othello is the story of a Moroccan general whose marriage to a Venetian noblewoman is seemingly able to overcome prejudicial challenges to their love until these forces manifest in their villainy of a brother-in-arms he tragically trusts. For further information or to arrange a class field trip for the Nov. 17 show, please contact Prof. Pewitt at will.pewitt@unf.edu.
Professor Pewitt is deeply grateful to organizations that have provided funding for this production based on grants he has written and been fortunate enough to have received. Special thanks to the Office of Faculty Excellence, the Humanities and Arts Program, the Eisen Experiential Learning program, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Hicks Honors College, and the UNF Department of English.
