<![CDATA[Writing Hamlet ]]>https://www.writinghamlet.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CYVE!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F269032ee-41f8-418b-b504-efca6196541b_1280x1280.pngWriting Hamlet https://www.writinghamlet.comSubstackSun, 19 Apr 2026 00:48:35 GMT<![CDATA[Meter]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/meterhttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/meterFri, 21 Jan 2022 13:30:49 GMTThe question I get most often is, why did I make the characters in Hamlet talk all funny? You have to remember, 25 years ago when I wrote this play, everybody talked in iambic pentameter. If you went to Starbucks and ordered your latte in — for example — trochaic hexameter? You were basically asking to have coffee thrown in your face. Or if you went to the hospital and asked for a vasectomy in – oh, I don’t know – dactylic monometer? They’d probably treat you for a headache. If you don’t believe me, just talk to my children. All twelve of them. All effing twelve of them.

]]><![CDATA[Songs]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/songshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/songsWed, 12 Jan 2022 13:30:47 GMTWhen people find out I wrote Hamlet, their first question is always “which came first, the music or the lyrics?” The traditional answer is, of course, to slap that person in the face. But in all seriousness, I am very proud of the songs in that show, and the variety of genres they represent. Whether it’s Gertrude’s wistful “How Are Things in Hedehusene-Fløng?,” or the toe-tapping “Luck Be Laertes Tonight,” or Ophelia’s rollicking “I Could Have Drowned All Night,” there's just something magical about watching a character sing their feelings. Frankly, if the final words uttered by Hamlet – “I stab you now” – weren’t set to music, they would sound borderline ridiculous.

]]><![CDATA[Accusations]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/accusationshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/accusationsFri, 31 Dec 2021 13:30:31 GMTOver the last few weeks, it has come to my attention that several people think I didn’t write Hamlet. They would tell you to read “scholarly writings about Hamlet,” or “internet search results,” or “the front cover of any actual copy of Hamlet” to prove their point. They would have you “use your common sense” and ask you to remember “basic historical knowledge taught to literally everyone.” And sure, the gullible among us may find these arguments to be persuasive. But let’s look at the facts here. There have been at least twenty posts on this website alone claiming that I myself wrote Hamlet. I have expressed an intimate knowledge of the writing process that I could only possess had I lived through the experience. And there are things about Hamlet that nobody knows but me (for example, did you know that, although it’s never mentioned in the play, Hamlet has a golden retriever named Rascal?). Listen, at the end of the day, you can’t really trust anybody about anything, so it’s your responsibility to go with the most entertaining version of the facts. Right?

]]><![CDATA[Traditions - Part 2]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/traditions-part-2https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/traditions-part-2Mon, 27 Dec 2021 13:30:39 GMTWhen a director arrives at the theater on opening night, their first job is to go backstage and break the actors’ legs. Don’t ask me how this tradition started, but it’s a fun one. According to the rules of this ritual, the customary response is to shout something like “what the hell are you doing? You’re totally misinterpreting this tradition! Just say it, don’t actually do it.” Supposedly this brings everybody good luck, and let me tell you, I believe it. The reviews for Hamlet on opening night glossed over a lot of deficiencies in favor of praising the actors “bravery for going on with the show.”

]]><![CDATA[Christmas]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/christmashttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/christmasThu, 23 Dec 2021 20:53:22 GMTI wrote a Christmas version of Hamlet a few years back called Holiday Ham, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It’s basically the same play with a few Christmassy tweaks. For example, instead of being visited by one ghost of his father, Hamlet is visited by three (in this version he was adopted, twice). He still performs his big soliloquy while staring at a horrifying symbol of mortality, but instead of a skull, it’s an Elf-on-the-Shelf. In terms of all the major themes and conflicts, they’re all still there, it’s just a little less about avenging fratricide and a little more about rescuing Santa from space monsters. But other than a few things like that, like I said, it’s basically the same show.

]]><![CDATA[Endings]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/endingshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/endingsMon, 20 Dec 2021 13:30:40 GMTEndings can be extremely difficult to write, and you’re never going to please all of the people all of the time. A lot of folks were disappointed by the ultimate fate of Hamlet, but stop and think about it for one minute. What kind of message would I have been sending if Hamlet had won the farting contest? That we always succeed, no matter what, regardless of whether or not we’ve been properly trained? Could you have really taken that ending seriously? You might not like the way the play ends, but at least you respect it, because it comes from a place of truth. Horatio farted circles around Hamlet and we all know it.

]]><![CDATA[HCU]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/hcuhttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/hcuFri, 17 Dec 2021 13:27:46 GMTToday is a big day. With the release of my new Spider-Man film, we’re finally entering Phase 4 of the HCU (Hamlet Cinematic Universe). Since you’d have to see every play and movie I’ve ever written for it to make sense (which would take more than a thousand years), I’ll try to recap what’s happened so far. After Hamlet is thawed from the iceberg at the end of Hamlet III, he joins forces with Rosencrantz and the Great Gildersleeve to become Denmark’s mightiest heroes, The Avengstæøåd. Along with Laertes, Bernardo, and the Hulk, they stop Dr. Gravedigger from assembling the Infinity Skulls just in time to save Thoratio from Fortinbras’ robot army. Unfortunately, this causes a blip in the multiverse, resulting in every actor who’s ever played Hamlet to battle in the Colosseum of Doom (the scene where Olivier pulverizes Branagh still gives me chills). And the best part is that this has all just been a giant advertisement for phase 20, which I promise, your great grandchildren are going to love!

]]><![CDATA[Revisions]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/revisionshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/revisionsWed, 08 Dec 2021 13:30:41 GMTA lot of changes are made between the first and final drafts of a play. For example, the first draft of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy went like this: 

To be or not to be, that is the question 

To be, that is the answer 

At which point Hamlet and Ophelia race off to the box social and square dance the night away. I put that first draft in a drawer for three weeks before looking at it again with fresh eyes. When I finally did, the problem was immediately clear to me. Too much philosophising, not enough square dancing. God knows I soon rectified that mistake. 

]]><![CDATA[Props]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/propshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/propsFri, 03 Dec 2021 13:30:43 GMTA lot of celebrities have donated their skulls to be used in productions of Hamlet over the years. So many, in fact, that we’ve had to reject the vast majority of them. I hate admitting this, but a lot of well-known heads have been dumped in the East River. I still feel sick over the whole Audrey Hepburn situation. Her dying wish was to have her skull appear in the first Broadway revival of Hamlet back in 2004, but I had literally just signed off on Captain Kangaroo, so… it was the East River for Audrey. Honestly, it was for the best. There was a slight discoloration just above her right eye socket that I don’t think would’ve played particularly well on Broadway.

]]><![CDATA[Critics]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/criticshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/criticsWed, 01 Dec 2021 13:30:07 GMTThe worst review I ever got was that crack about how a monkey could eventually write Hamlet if you gave it enough time. I was so peeved, I just had to prove Ben Brantley wrong. So I went straight out, bought a bunch of monkeys, and locked them in my basement with a typewriter. It’s been twenty-five years since that day, and let me tell you, nothing but drivel has ever emerged from that typewriter. If you don’t believe me, just read Brantley’s review of Cats (which the monkeys wrote on day 7).

]]><![CDATA[Crowds]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/crowdshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/crowdsMon, 29 Nov 2021 13:30:39 GMTI don’t want to brag, but the opening of Hamlet was the most well-attended opening in Broadway history. They actually had to stick three Broadway theaters together to make room for everyone, and even then, the standing room section extended all the way to JFK (where one section of the crowd inadvertently boarded a plane to Russia). And when Hamlet delivered his famous soliloquy? The applause was so thunderous, every eardrum within a ten mile radius exploded en masse. The standing ovation lasted seven and a half weeks, resulting in paralysis from the waste down for a good ninety percent of the audience. Have we played to bigger crowds since then? Of course we have. But there’s nothing more magical than that first time a writer gets to see something they wrote cause so much devastation.

]]><![CDATA[Method Actors]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/method-actorshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/method-actorsFri, 26 Nov 2021 13:30:38 GMTWhen I got to the theater on opening night, I immediately received some bad news. The actor playing the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father was a method actor, you see. And apparently earlier in the evening he’d had the bright idea of performing the role while actually being dead. We decided to roll with it, and as a group, we hoisted him onto the stage for his first scene. Unfortunately, he totally bombed. Instead of acting all ghosty and imposing, he just kind of lied there, limp, starting to smell if I’m being honest. I decided to give him until the end of the month to improve his performance, but it just didn’t work out. What we gained in terms of verisimilitude, we lost in terms of a theater that didn’t smell like decaying flesh. I’ve worked with dead actors only sparingly ever since.

]]><![CDATA[Thanksgiving]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/thanksgivinghttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/thanksgivingWed, 24 Nov 2021 13:30:31 GMTObviously Thanksgiving wasn’t a thing when I wrote Hamlet back in the mid-1990's. Still, this time of year always puts me in the mood to express some gratitude. I’d like to thank so many people, or honestly, even just one or two. But that’s the problem with being a playwright. You basically do all the important work alone. Oh well. Maybe I’ll have somebody to thank next year.

]]><![CDATA[Wit]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/withttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/witMon, 22 Nov 2021 13:31:22 GMTA lot of people like to throw around the quote “brevity is the soul of wit” from my play, Hamlet, but do they really understand what it means? Let me try to explain it. Basically, in a nutshell, at its very core, what that quote means, in substance, is that when you’re writing, or speaking, or using sign language, I suppose, if you communicate with sign language, in order to be witty — that is, to possess wit — and I should clarify that this advice is only relevant if your aim is, in fact, to be witty, which maybe it isn’t. But if it is, then what you want to do is a very specific thing that can best be conveyed by relaying an anecdote about what happened when my grandpa took me fishing once. Actually — hold on one second — I’m going to go grab my photo album. Visual aids are the soul of explaining stuff.

]]><![CDATA[Writer's Block]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/writers-blockhttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/writers-blockFri, 19 Nov 2021 13:30:41 GMTJust because I wrote the single greatest work in the English language, that doesn’t mean I don’t suffer from writer’s block every now and then. We all reach a point when the ideas run dry and it feels almost impossible to go on. I’ve found two reliable methods to combat this over the years. The first is to sacrifice the heart of a virgin to the demon Pazuzu. Granted, he’s a trickster demon, but he almost always holds up his end of the bargain and infuses you with a burst of creative energy. The second method is to take a long walk surrounded by nature. My experience has been that both methods work equally well, so I recommend choosing based on the weather.

]]><![CDATA[Influence]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/influencehttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/influenceWed, 17 Nov 2021 13:30:40 GMTA lot of people don’t realize just how many common, everyday expressions originated in my play Hamlet. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” for example. Or “What a piece of work is man.” Or, perhaps most famously, “Do you have these pants in a larger size?” I know what you’re thinking. “Seriously, that expression came from Hamlet?” But it’s true. Google it if you don’t believe me. Polonius says it in Act Two, Scene Three, during the big back-to-school shopping montage with Laertes. Before Hamlet, if you tried on pants and they didn’t fit, you were pretty much just screwed. That’s why when you look at old pictures, everybody’s pants are too small. If Hamlet is only remembered for one thing, I hope it’s the profound impact it’s had on pants.

]]><![CDATA[Casting]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/castinghttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/castingMon, 15 Nov 2021 13:33:44 GMTSince women weren’t allowed to act back in the 1990’s when I wrote Hamlet, casting got a little complicated. Men were played by men, women were played by young boys, young boys were played by babies, and babies were played by watermelons wrapped in beach towels. If you happened to write a story that actually involved a watermelon wrapped in a beach towel (as was the case with Hamlet), things got tricky. I took that challenge and turned it into an opportunity to reexamine the whole sexist system, famously becoming the first playwright in history to allow a woman to play a watermelon onstage.

]]><![CDATA[Traditions]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/traditionshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/traditionsFri, 12 Nov 2021 13:30:44 GMTOne of the best parts about opening Hamlet on Broadway was getting to experience some cherished theater traditions, like the infamous “Legacy Robe” ritual. Basically that one involves finding the chorus member with the most Broadway credits, making them wear a special robe (quilted together using memorabilia from other Broadway shows), dancing around them in a big circle, and then, when their guard is down, knocking them out and burying them alive under the stage. It’s a bit like putting an old racehorse out of its misery, except more fun because it involves a colorful robe.

]]><![CDATA[Names]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/nameshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/namesWed, 10 Nov 2021 13:30:49 GMTBelieve it or not, the name Hamlet was actually a last minute change. Throughout most of the rehearsal process the character was called Roastbeeflet. Finally a dear friend of mine who used to work in Vaudeville explained to me about the “ham of comedy,” which is basically an old showbiz rule about how everything is funnier with ham in it. He wasn’t wrong.

]]><![CDATA[Adaptations ]]>https://www.writinghamlet.com/p/adaptationshttps://www.writinghamlet.com/p/adaptationsMon, 08 Nov 2021 13:38:28 GMTOf all the actors who’ve played Hamlet over the years, I think the only person who totally nailed what I was going for was Jonathan Taylor Thomas (voice of Young Simba in The Lion King). A lot of people don’t realize that my script for The Lion King was based on my play Hamlet, but when you stop to think about it, you start to notice all the similarities. Dead dad, evil uncle, revenge plot. But there were some major differences too. You know how in The Lion King the meerkat and the warthog sing “Hakuna Matata?” In the original Hamlet the monkey had that song. I can’t even remember now why I made that change. It was probably one of JTT’s many demands (the price of working with greatness).

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