The Sonnet Man

The Sonnet Man introduces and makes Shakespeare accessible to audiences through the medium of music in a genre they know and love – Hip Hop!

Devon Glover, an artist, teacher and modern-day Sonnet Man, delivers sonnets as originally written, and then breaks them down into today’s “spoken word.”  Students are inspired, motivated, and educated as The Sonnet Man raps Shakespeare’s sonnets to energetic beats.  On-stage volunteers and audience participants then get to make an attempt at rapping Shakespeare with The Sonnet Man as their guide (optional).

Throughout the assembly, participants also engage in other activities with The Sonnet Man, including: songs with call-n-response prompts, multiple choice questions, tongue twisters, pick-up line contests, and more.  The Sonnet Man Brings It!

Devon Glover is a teacher, rapper, poet, playwright and actor from Brooklyn New York. He performs Shakespeare's Sonnets in a dynamic way through Hip-Hop in schools, universities, and theaters to young audiences nationally and abroad. As The Sonnet Man, Devon has appeared on NBC, MSNBC, BBC, and Educational Conferences and Shakespeare Festivals throughout the world, including Oregon, Stratford, Ontario, and Stratford-upon-Avon. The Sonnet Man provides hundreds of shows and creative writing workshops in schools, universities, and theatres to audiences of all ages worldwide. The release of his debut video “Hip-Hop Hamlet” was selected for the Shakespeare Short Film Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon. In April 2016, Devon went on a SonnetMarathon tour through the US, UK, and Morocco—where he rapped all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets in succession on April 24th. In May 2017, Devon played the role of Touchstone in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” with the Southern Shakespeare Company. In the fall 2017, Devon co-wrote “A Town Divided”, an adaption of “Romeo and Juliet” that was based on the racial divide in Tallahassee, FL. In the Spring of 2019, I was commissioned by the University of Warwick and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to write a hip-hop adaptation of “Twelfth Night.” For more information, visit (link hidden).

For a Sonnet Man performance, the technical requirements are as follows:

--A Microphone
--A PA system, that can be connected to my I-Pad (Aux cord --1/8") for backing tracks.
--A backline (if a band is requested with artist).
--a small table.
--lighting for center downstage (for theatre and dark rooms).