BONUS: Bandits on the Run’s ‘The Shakespeare Tapes’

Shakespeare’s words from "As You Like It" and "Twelfth Night" get a catchy, folkish musical treatment on "The Shakespeare Tapes," a new EP by folk-pop-americana trio Bandits on the Run. The Brooklyn-based group’s three band members — Adrian Blake Enscoe (he/they), Sydney Shepherd (she/her), and Regina Stayhorn (she/her) — join Shakespeare’s Shadows for this bonus episode to talk about the forthcoming EP, which has one single, “Tiny Boy,” out now. Bandits on the Run originally composed the EP’s six songs for a 2022 production of "As You Like It" directed by Peter Andersen at Carnegie Mellon University. The band chatted with Shakespeare’s Shadows host Emily Rome about leaning into As You Like It’s themes of gender and self-discovery with this music, about performing the songs on tour, and why recording this in Nashville felt “actively defiant.” Currently Bandits on the Run are working on the stage musical adaptation of "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape," and they will be on tour across the U.S. this summer. Among the band members’ past work: Sydney has played such roles as Lizzie Borden in the musical Lizzie and Viola in the "Twelfth Night" musical adaptation "Illyria," Regina has performed Off-Broadway at the Secret Theatre and Lincoln Center, and Adrian starred in Broadway musical "Swept Away" and Apple TV+ series "Dickinson."