Off-Broadway theatre company Bedlam is developing a comedic, eight-episode streaming series that combines characters and plot points from Shakespeare's King Lear, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, and more. The series will tell a new story and use Shakespearean language.

Filming for Bedlam: The Series will begin this month in New York City and the Hudson Valley, with a release details to be announced.

Featured in the cast will be Zuzanna Szadkowski, Triney Sandoval, Kaden Kearney, Mike Labbadia, Tracee Beazer, Elan Zafir, Claire Hsu, Ryan Quinn, John Terry, Perri Yaniv, Eric Tucker, Katie Hartke, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Ted Lewis, Nigel Gore, Musa Gurnis, Arash Mokhtar, Rami Margron, Zachary Fine, Lisa Birnbaum, Ashley Bufkin, Karen Alvarado, Galen Molk, Woody Fu, Murphy Taylor Smith, Maya Margarita, Tiffany Denise Hobbs, Violeta Picayo, Mia Vallet, and Caroline Grogan.

“We will take the plot lines of three Shakespeare plays, along with text from several others, and create a series that introduces audiences to William Shakespeare as he has never been experienced before,” says Artistic Director Eric Tucker. “We will make Shakespeare’s language and characters accessible, exciting and fresh to both Shakespeare fans and Shakespeare newcomers. We will make a series that is both innovative and experimental, engaging a diversity of BIPOC artists across all departments, and all the while in adherence to all necessary COVID safety and health protocols.”

Founded in 2012 with a four-actor production of Shaw's Saint Joan, Bedlam has gone on to produce inventive and often irreverent small-cast takes on such works as Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Sense and Sensibility, and Pygmalion. The new streaming series will allow the company to produce work as theatres nationwide are largely shuttered in the wake of COVID-19.