Indy Shakes fuses Shakespeare and hip-hop in upcoming 'Ricky 3'

Indy Shakes’ 2022 Shakespeare in the Park production aims to shed new light on the famed playwright by putting a different spin on one of his classics this summer.

For the last 14 years, the local, artist-led Indianapolis Shakespeare Company — also known as Indy Shakes — has put on free summer Shakespeare productions, including "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 2021 and "Hamlet" in 2019. This year, they will put on “Ricky 3 – a Hip-Hop Shakespeare Richard III” for their summer 2022 mainstage production.

Taking place July 21-23 and 28-30 at Taggart Memorial Amphitheatre in Riverside Park, “Ricky 3” will add a twist to the classic by incorporating rapping, dancing, rhythm and beats.

“A lot of times we get a stereotypical thought of what Shakespeare is supposed to be,” Shawnté Gaston, a company member playing the role of Richard III, said. “And really, Shakespeare can be a million different things.”

"Ricky 3" follows closely to the original “Richard III,” which is one of many history-based plays written by William Shakespeare, said director Mikael Burke said. The storyline follows Richard of Gloucester, a man who will do any and everything to steal a throne he isn’t naturally in line to inherit.

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“It's really about how far certain types of people are willing to go to get the thing that they want, no matter the cost,” Burke said. “And what does it mean for us on the outside to watch that happen and not do anything about it?”

'It's all about the power of words and language'

Burke said the idea to combine hip-hop and Shakespeare — to rap the entire show without changing a single word — came from artistic director Ryan Artzberger. Burke said he knew “Richard III” would be the perfect play to test this idea.

In “Richard III,” Burke said Richard of Gloucester wields words to outwit, outsmart and outmaneuver the people in his world, which is not so far off from rap and hip-hop.

“When I think about the origin and genesis of rap and hip-hop, it's all about the power of words and the power of language,” Burke said, “and how fully and deeply you can communicate when you've arranged words in a certain way and you align words with a certain rhythm.”

Kerrington Shorter, a company member playing the role of Buckingham, said he’s been listening to a few of his favorite rap artists, such as NAS and André 3000 in order to find and better understand his character's voice to make it his own onstage.

“I've been taking this opportunity to listen to some of my favorite hip-hop artists and be like, ‘Where do I hear Buckingham?’” he said. ”So kind of like, picking apart this language that I already knew and loved and finding bits and pieces where I can incorporate this character.”

For Gaston, one of the most interesting parts of playing the lead role is simply finding the voice of the character Richard III within the text, even before it is put to music.

“It's interesting because Richard really has so many different faces,” she said. “He's scheming his way to being king, which means he has to placate a lot of people and make people believe things. So oftentimes when we see him in a scene, he's not being his true self.”

Merging the languages of Shakespeare and hip-hop

However, no production is without its challenges. In the case of “Ricky 3,” Burke said they had to build this production backward. When most artists are creating and writing rap, they’re usually writing to the music they’re going to create, even if they don’t have the music yet, he said.

Gaston said the tricky part is finding a balance between lines that are spoken and lines that are rapped and then bringing in music to support it rather than distract from it.

“The words go perfectly with hip-hop. They are already written in iambic pentameter, so they have a rhythm to them naturally,” she said. “So marrying that with the beats is not the difficult part. The difficult part is we're kind of going in between rapping and not rapping.”

Although the show tells the story of an ultra-charismatic man — Richard III — doing terrible things to get what he wants, Burke said there is also the underlying idea of those who not only helped Richard along the way but were also too distracted by his façade to see his leadership was causing them harm.

“I think the last few years that we've had as a culture, we all have very personal experience with that exact thing,” Burke said. “The thing that I'm most excited about is like, the moment when we all sort of realize as we're watching this, as much fun as we're having, there's a reason that we're doing this right now.”

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Despite its challenges, Shorter and Gaston said they’re excited to show audiences how well the two worlds go together and how Shakespeare can be experimented with.

“I think that audiences are going to be very, very surprised and pleased with how well hip-hop  — the language of hip-hop — and the language of Shakespeare merge,” Shorter said. “I think fans of hip-hop, fans of Shakespeare [and] fans of neither one can all come together and find something, like, walk away from this show with elements that they enjoyed.”

Indy Shakes’ Shakespeare in the Park productions are free to attend and guests can reserve tickets online at indyshakes.com/tickets. VIP tickets, which include a table close to the stage and a gift, are also available on the website for $25.

Guests may also register for the American Sign Language-interpreted version on July 28, which will also be available via livestream.

What to know if you go: “Ricky 3”

“Ricky 3” will take place July 21-23 and 28-30 at the Taggart Memorial Amphitheater in Riverside Park located at 1856 Burdsal Parkway. Doors will open at 7 p.m. and the show will begin at 8 p.m., lasting approximately two hours with one 15-minute intermission.

Seating is not provided and guests are encouraged to bring items needed for an outdoor event such as lawn chairs, picnic blankets, sunscreen and bug spray.

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Guests may bring their own picnic or pre-order food for pick up from vendors such as Black Leaf Vegan and Fresco Italian. Guests can pre-order food at bit.ly/3OABRgD. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks will be available from vendors such as Sip & Share Wines, Guggmanhaus and Sun King Brewery. Pre-orders are not required for drinks.

More information regarding ticketing and parking is available at indyshakes.com.

Contact IndyStar reporter Chloe McGowan at CWilkersonMcGowan@gannett.com. Follow her Twitter: @chloe_mcgowanxx.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy Shakes to put on Ricky 3, a hip-hop Shakespeare Richard III