Jacob Ming-Trent's HOW SHAKESPEARE SAVED MY LIFE is Coming to Red Bull Theater

Red Bull Theater has revealed details for the rolling World Premiere of How Shakespeare Saved My Life, an epic poem told by Jacob Ming-Trent with verse rhyme and song. Jacob tells us how Shakespeare raised him, saved him and ultimately showed him that forgiveness and mercy could set him free. "America tried to take my life, a five-hundred-year-old white dude saved it."  

 The rolling World Premiere of How Shakespeare Saved My Life will be produced in 2026 by Berkeley Repertory Theatre (Johanna Pfaelzer, Artistic Director and Tom Parrish, Managing Director); by Folger Theatre (Karen Ann Daniels, Artistic Director); and by Red Bull Theater. How Shakespeare Saved My Life will be directed by Tony Taccone. 

 "When Jacob sent me his first ten pages of what has now become How Shakespeare Saved My Life, I was blown away and knew immediately it was something we wanted to fully support at Red Bull and share with our audiences. It already had the insight, humor, and deeply personal story that makes for meaningful theater.” said Founder & Artistic Director Berger. “Since its first public sharings with our commissioning partners at the Folger Theater in DC and in our 20th Anniversary Festival performances, it has continued to evolve further towards what will be a spectacular tour de force theatrical event. That three great American theater companies have now joined forces to bring it to stages all across our country is testament to the magnetic power of this play. We are thrilled to announce this rolling world premiere. Join us as Jacob shares his personal journey in this show: a journey that is at once Homeric, Shakespearean, and very much of today.”

 "I sat down a year and a half ago to write a different story, but my subconscious, my soul, my spirit, my ancestors demanded I write this story.  How Shakespeare Saved My Life...  Because mine was a life that needed saving,  And a five-hundred-year-old dead white man lent me a hand. In America, it is often said that the only way out of the ghetto is to make music or play ball. Shakespeare was my way out. I was the son of two mentally ill parents, homeless twice before the age of sixteen, a high school drop out, short, fat, black, and ugly, and Shakespeare revealed to me the beauty that lives within me. As a black man fighting injustice daily, my anger and need for revenge almost killed me.  Shakespeare opened the path to forgiveness. I'm not here to share my story, but to tell parts of my tale in hopes that this might save a life as well,” said Mr. Ming-Trent.

Jacob Ming-Trent

(Playwright and Performer).  Broadway: currently appearing as Uncle Jocko  in Gypsy opposite Audra McDonald; other Broadway credits include Hands on a Hardbody, Shrek the Musical. Off-Broadway credits include Red Bull Theater: Medea: Re-Versed (2025 Lortel Award nomination as Outstanding Featured Performer in a Musical), The Alchemist (2022 Lortel Award nomination, Outstanding Featured Performer in a Play); Public Theater: Merry Wives, Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play), Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, The Tempest; Lincoln Center Theater: On the Levee; Theatre for a New Audience: The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Acting Company: The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Film: Superfly, The Forty-Year Old Version; R#J; The Possession of Hannah Grace. Television: "Watchmen,"  "White Famous," "Ray Donavan," "Feed the Beast," "Only Murders in the Building," "New Amsterdam," "God Friended Me."

 How Shakespeare Saved My Life is an autobiographical-inspired theatrical work by playwright and Broadway performer Jacob Ming-Trent.  In this tour-de-force performance, Jacob Ming-Trent dares to rescue himself from the “slings and arrows” of his past. Born with a gift for poetry but rejected as unfit to play the part of the poet, Ming-Trent’s search for home is relentless, and the results are by turns hilarious and tragic. Invoking a host of artistic geniuses such as Biggie, Tupac, Shakespeare, and Basquiat, Ming-Trent takes us on a propulsive ride that reaffirms the power of language and music. It all adds up to how one man’s attempt to reclaim his life may connect to the deeper parts of ourselves and to each other. How Shakespeare Saved My Life is an epiphany that begins with Shakespeare but becomes a ritual of salvation and forgiveness that invites the audience to save themselves and each other.