Whitney White’s all-female Shakespeare musical All Is But Fantasy heads to the RSC

Whitney White’s All Is But Fantasy, an all-female musical mashup that reshuffles Shakespearean characters, is about to be staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in two parts.

White, a Tony‑nominated director, performer and songwriter, has framed the productions around music and communal performance. She says she heard “rock’n’roll” in Macbeth and that “to me, Lady Macbeth sounded like Tina Turner,” and she has paired figures such as Lady Macbeth and Othello’s Emilia in one part, and Juliet and Richard III in the other. The witches from Macbeth are placed front and centre, singing in a mix that she says sounds like gospel and hymn, and the shows are set in a church-like space to allow communal witnessing.

The work reframes female ambition, power and mortality: White describes the piece as “a look at fatal heterosexual female arcs” and says personal losses in her family informed the project. She also traces lines between Emilia’s speech about abused women and the rise in domestic abuse during the pandemic, saying she marries the plays to her lived experience to ask questions of the audience.

As the RSC mounting approaches, White says she is both scared and alive. She describes a deep reverence for the text — meeting Ian McKellen and Judi Dench left her humbled — and says she wants to “add a new song to the mass,” while bringing new musical and communal readings to these Shakespearean women.

Key Topics

Culture, Whitney White, Royal Shakespeare Company, William Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth, Emilia