Arts & Entertainment
Audio Adaptation of ‘Hamlet’ Delivers Fresh Take on Shakespearean Tragedy
Tragedy, betrayal, revenge.
Those are the themes of most any Shakespearean drama — but audiences are now getting a twist with the classic “Hamlet.” Rather than a stage production, creators are delivering an audio adaptation.
The story follows Hamlet, a young man who is home from school to mourn the death of his father, King Hamlet, who died two months earlier. Hamlet is disgusted to learn that his newly widowed mother, Queen Gertrude, married his uncle, King Hamlet’s brother, Claudius, who now has the throne.
Hamlet is known for being a complex character with deep internal struggles. The play, which tackles profound themes like death, madness and revenge, has now been compacted into a six-part podcast series.
“When we have the audience between a set of headphones, we have this special superpower that we can do,” said Make-Believe Association founder Jeremy McCarter, who adapted, directed and executive produced the series. “We can make them feel that they’re inside the main character’s head. And I just thought, well, if we can do that, what would be a more interesting head to be inside than Hamlet’s?”
Audience members at the “Hamlet” world premiere at the Tribeca Festival on June 5, 2025, at a one-night event hosted by The Public Theater. (Courtesy of Simon Luthei)
McCarter’s previous work on projects like the audio drama “Lake Song” and “City on Fire: Chicago Race Riot 1919,” an audio docudrama, makes him no stranger to this form of production, but adapting Hamlet in this style was an interesting feat nonetheless.
“We have the performances of the actors and the way that they respond to the cues that they’re getting from … sound design,” McCarter said. “The response we’re getting from early audiences is that people feel like they’re really in it.”
The idea of this project first hit McCarter two years ago and has been in the making since. McCarter and his production team reached out to Daniel Kyri, a Chicago native who has played the role of Hamlet in another capacity and agreed to star in this audio version.
“I feel like a lot of actors are in pursuit of what their version of this iconic character can be,” Kyri said. “It is rife with challenges. The ability to do your analysis of the text and what’s happening and to translate it into living, breathing beingness, I think, is something that is just worthy of the challenge.”
Kyri said preparation requires a world of study, but collaborating with other members of the team made things easier especially when it came time to bounce ideas off each other.
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Hamlet.” (Courtesy of Make-Believe Association)
“Hamlet” has undergone a number of adaptations throughout the years, but McCarter believes audio storytelling creates fresh opportunities.
Audience members will get up close and personal with Hamlet’s mind within the first few minutes of Episode 1. “Hamlet,” known for being Shakespeare’s longest play, is carefully dissected into six parts, making what is typically a lengthy production much more digestible for listeners.
And though audience members can’t physically see Kyri, he still has the privilege of joining the ranks of the few Black men who have played the role of Hamlet.
“I think that it really is an opportunity to perhaps divorce myself or my characters, the kinds of perhaps expectations that might come up from people visually seeing me and to just kind of lean in and listen to his story, what he is experiencing, and just empathize with his humanity,” Kyri said. “I think it’s just a wonderful opportunity to just let our imaginations go and feel what we feel from the circumstances that this human person is experiencing.”
“Hamlet” was released Tuesday and is streaming on Hamlet.FM, Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
