Content Warnings
At the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, we believe in preparing our audiences - especially families and educators - with the information they need to feel comfortable and confident at the theatre.
This page offers guidance on content that may be helpful to know in advance, including language, themes, or theatrical effects such as haze, strobe lighting, or loud noises. While our productions vary in tone, we aim to give you a heads-up about anything that might raise questions for younger audience members or be startling for some viewers.
SPOILER ALERT! Some of these descriptions may contain plot points that may give away key moments.
If you have specific questions about a production, feel free to reach out to us directly. We're happy to help you plan your visit.
Shakespeare’s tragedy Julius Caesar explores themes of loyalty, betrayal, ambition, and the cost of power. Our production is a streamlined version for schools, performed with clarity and respect for student audiences. There are no stage weapons used, but the play does include stylized depictions of death and political violence, presented with red fabric rather than realistic gore.
Language and references (all used in historical and thematic context):
“Dagger,” “sword,” and “blood” – references to violence and death.
Insults such as “coward,” “traitor,” and “butcher.”
Period religious language such as “damned” or invocations of the gods.
Other themes and moments:
Multiple onstage deaths, including the assassination of Caesar and the suicides of Cassius and Brutus, all shown symbolically with fabric rather than weapons.
References to ghosts and omens (e.g. Caesar’s ghost, storm imagery, prophetic dreams).
Political manipulation, betrayal among friends, and mob unrest.
Portia’s death is described as suicide by “swallowing fire.”
Antony’s funeral speech incites riots and civil war (described but not graphically staged).
While this is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, our production emphasizes the human choices and consequences at its center rather than graphic spectacle. If your students have engaged with other Shakespeare tragedies such as Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, this production will feel thematically similar, though staged with restraint and abstraction to remain accessible to school audiences.