A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

LEVEL 12 BARD: Watching Atomic Shakespeare for the first time in years, a question came to mind--why is it that Taming of the Shrew has provoked so many reinventions, while other Shakespeare comedies haven't? I mean, beyond just Moonlighting, there's the meta-musical version (Kiss Me, Kate) and the teen movie version (Ten Things I Hate About You). While we had Michael Hoffman's version of Midsummer Night's Dream a few years back, that was period and original text rather than a meta re-imagining of the play. I'll argue that Never Been Kissed owes more than a little bit of a debt to As You Like It, but other than that, why haven't Shakespeare comedies gotten the same reinvention treatment many of the tragedies have? To be fair, Twelfth Night is getting the treatment now, both as the basis for the book for Elvis musical All Shook Up and in the forthcoming She's The Man, an Amanda Bynes driven teen comedy, but what about As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing? There's money to be made, folks.