¡O Romeo! Shakespeare on the Altar of Día de los Muertos

In this chapter, Sanchez examines her role as director and devisor of ¡O Romeo!, a devised, musical play based on the life, work, and imagined death of Shakespeare created for Milagro’s annual Día de los Muertos celebration in 2014. Milagro, as the Pacific Northwest’s premiere Latinx culture and arts organization, was uniquely situated to do this work in Portland due to its longstanding role in both the Latinx and theatre communities. This chapter asks what it means to use a canonically Anglo figure such as Shakespeare in a Latinx cultural context. ¡O Romeo! honored Shakespeare’s artistic contributions while humanizing the artist as a father still mourning the death of his son, Hamnet. Facing his own mortality, Shakespeare is visited by several of his most memorable characters including the villainous Lady M and Richard III who plot to destroy his legacy. This chapter explores how Shakespeare is imagined and inspired by the history of Aztec culture, Spanish colonization, and the languages of Spanish and Nahuatl, to create the first literary celebration of Día de los Muertos in his imaginary final play entitled, The Mystical Story of Love and Reunion of Xochiquetzal, the Aztec Maiden, and the Spanish Conquistador Don Armando.