Recycled in Space/Theatre
- Shakespeare gets this treatment often:
- Disney's The Lion King and its sequel are essentially Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, respectively, AS Talking Animal CARTOONS! With happy endings!
- Lion King 1 1/2 is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Were Eaten by a Lion.
- 1999's Titus, set WHENEVER JULIE TAYMOR FELT LIKE IT! No, seriously. One minute it's Ancient Rome, the next it's the 1940s.
- Forbidden Planet (1956) is The Tempest IN SPACE!
- Twilight is even described by the author as Romeo and Juliet WITH SPARKLY VAMPIRES AND Emo WEREWOLVES! Unfortunately, none of the protagonists die as horribly as the characters to whom they are compared.
- It also supposed to be Romeo and Juliet except TOTALLY SERIOUS!
- Gnomeo and Juliet. There's GNOMES!
- West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet IN AMERICA! The Musical!
- Of course, O is Othello IN HIGH SCHOOL!
- Strange Brew is Hamlet IN CANADA, WITH HOSERS!
- Director John Bell is a huge fan of this trope. He's done Macbeth in post-apocalyptic Russia, Titus Andronicus in a Library, and King Lear on a really bad acid trip.
- Orson Welles once put on a production of Macbeth set IN HAITI!
- Of course, the Bard wasn't scared of doing this himself. The Comedy of Errors is the Menaechmi with an extra pair of twins, after all.
- Servant of two masters by Carlo Goldoni is Romeo and Juliet AS A COMEDY! With HAPPY ENDING!
- Modern stage productions of Shakespeare use this trope so frequently that it's a long-standing joke among Shakespeare fans that the most daring and original thing a Director can do with Hamlet is set it in Denmark.
- Avenue Q on the other hand, is Rent WITH MUPPETS INSTEAD OF AIDS! Alternately, it's Sesame Street WITH ANGST!
- Kiss Me, Kate is The Taming of the Shrew AS A MUSICAL WITHIN ANOTHER MUSICAL!
- Not a musical: Seven Supermans is Seven Samurai WITH RIPPED OFF SUPERHEROES!
- The Music Man is The Rainmaker WITH A BOYS' MARCHING BAND INSTEAD OF RAIN! AND A Hot Librarian, TOO!
- The Hungarian Rock Opera King Stephen is Jesus Christ Superstar IN HUNGARY!
- Mourning Becomes Electra is Aeschylus's Oresteia IN AMERICA AT THE TIME OF THE CIVIL WAR!
- She's The Man is Twelfth Night WITH SOCCER!
- All Shook Up is Twelfth Night IN THE 1950S! IN THE AMERICAN MIDWEST! WITH ELVIS SONGS!
- Fiddler on the Roof is Pride and Prejudice WITH JEWS! AND RACISM!
- The Boys in the Band is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? WITH GAYS!
- The Desert Song is The Sheik WITH A Two-Person Love Triangle!
- Plain and Fancy is Oklahoma! IN PENNSYLVANIA!
- The Golden Apple is The Trojan Cycle IN AN AMERICAN SMALL TOWN!
- Little Shop of Horrors is Faust WITH A SINGING CARNIVOROUS PLANT!
- Cavalia is Cirque Du Soleil WITH HORSES!. In fact, it is directed by Normand Latourelle, one of Cirque's original founders.
- Brother Wolf is Beowulf IN 1800S APPALACHIA!
- One Man Two Guvnors is the 18th century Italian comedy The Servant of Two Masters AS A FARCE WITH GANGSTERS IN 1960S BRIGHTON!