by Ella Wisely | staff writer 

Johnson Theatre will present a modern take on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus in early October, with a nod to director Quentin Tarantino.

“I was a little hesitant because Titus Andronicus is a very advanced Shakespeare play and is very much about war,” senior Yessica Espinoza said. “But after seeing the costume design and the blocking and talking to Asterman about his vision for the play as a whole, I’m honestly really excited for it.”

Theater director Megan Thompson was looking for something different in choosing this year’s Shakespearean play.

“We always like to do Shakespeare plays and we did a comedy last year,” Thompson said, “So we were trying to figure out which of Shakespeare’s tragedies or dramas really pulled at us.”

Thompson wanted to switch it up, and she did juggle with different options. 

“Other options we threw around since we were looking at Shakespeare was maybe doing The Tempest or possibly Hamlet but we weren’t really called to either of those, ” Thompson said. 

Senior Ashlee Haws can’t wait to set the stage for the fall production.

“I was super excited when I heard this was the play we chose,” Haws said. “This is a really fun show and I’ve always liked it so I was really excited to see how we’re gonna work with it.”  

“The kids were very excited,” Thompson said. “They all know this is one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest plays and very dramatic and they were beyond excited about that and were eager to take this mature show into their own hands.”