About Shakespeare Republic
Created by Australian actor, Sally McLean in 2015 and considered the first major, continuously produced narrative web series to use Shakespeare’s original text in a modern setting, Shakespeare Republic is an internationally award-winning, female-led and culturally diverse anthology series produced by Incognita Enterprises that celebrates not just the world’s greatest playwright, but also his insightful understanding of the big issues of his time. Insights that still hold relevance today and form the basis for a truly diverse, inventive and epic journey into the nature of being human.
Collectively, the three seasons of Shakespeare Republic have been officially selected and screened at over 110 international film festivals, nominated for over 100 film festival and industry awards and won over 60 awards to date. A highlight was being the recipient of the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle Award for Best Digital Series in the USA in 2017, which saw McLean join the ranks of fellow CINE alumni such as Steven Spielberg (the then CINE President) Oprah Winfrey, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jim Henson, Mike Nichols, Robert Altman, Spike Lee, Billy Crystal, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack, among others. Fellow award winners that year were Christian Slater’s Mr Robot, Variety’s Actors on Actors and National Geographic’s MARS series.
Another highlight was winning the Best Film Award at the 2020 Falstaff Awards in the USA for Shakespeare Republic Season Three, decided by a jury of academics from around the world. Honorary Mentions for the award that year included the UK’s Shakespeare’s Globe broadcast program, Canada’s Stratford Festival broadcast series and the UK’s National Theatre Live at Home program. Previous winners of this award include the BBC’s Hollow Crown series, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing and Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender & Marion Cotillard.
Shakespeare Republic Season Three would go on to be named the Most Awarded Anthology Series in the world & ranked as the #6 Web Series globally in the 2021 Web Series World Cup, as decided by the amount of awards the season received from the top web series festivals worldwide. The series was acquired for the official collection of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia in 2018 and named as an “Acquisition Highlight” in the NFSA’s 2018/19 Annual Report. The third season of the series was acquired and added to the official collection at the NFSA in 2020.
McLean’s Shakespeare-language short film Speaking Daggers – the first spin-off project from Shakespeare Republic commissioned for the inaugural Arts Learning Festival at ACMI in Melbourne – was officially selected for 22 international film festivals, including being an official selection at the prestigious Academy Awards® qualifying St Kilda Film Festival. The film would go on to win several awards, including a Highly Commended Finalist award at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Film Festival in the UK, as awarded by the jury, headed by Jury President, Sir Kenneth Branagh.
Shakespeare Republic has been the subject of several academic presentations and plenary panels at Early Modern Literature and Shakespeare seminars and conferences in Australia, the UK and USA since it’s launch in 2016 to now. Shakespeare Republic creator/director, Sally McLean’s first academic published work on Shakespeare, an essay exploring her methodology behind Shakespeare Republic and Shakespeare performance in general, was published in the USA by Routledge Press in 2020 as part of the academic collection, Playfulness In Shakespearean Adaptations edited by Marina Gerzic (The University of Western Australia) and Aidan Norrie (Warwick University, UK).
The third season of Shakespeare Republic has been taught at Syracuse University, USA, discussed in papers presented at the Shakespeare Association of America Conference (USA) and BritGrad Conference (UK) and is also further explored in the Arden Shakespeare collection, Lockdown Shakespeare: New Evolutions in Performance and Adaptation, published by Bloomsbury Press in the UK in July 2022.
Shakespeare Republic has most recently been discussed in Authenticity and Adaptation, published by Palgrave Macmillan (UK/USA) in February, 2025. McLean’s work on the series as writer/director is analysed alongside filmmakers such as Guillermo Del Toro, Joss Whedon, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Zac Snyder, Taika Waititi, James Gunn and Bryan Singer, among others.
In 2021, McLean was commissioned by Howard Fine Acting Studio Australia to create, write and direct a student Shakespeare web series, Walking Shadows. It’s third and final season is currently on the international film festival circuit. The series is currently ranked in the Top 10 web series globally and the No. 1 web series in Australia and has won several international awards, most recently: Best Director for Sally at the 2025 LA WebFest.
A second spin-off from Shakespeare Republic, the limited short form series, Dark Arcadia, is currently finishing it’s run on the international film festival circuit. It has won 30 awards to date, as well as being named in the Top 10 web series globally in the 2024 WSWC rankings. Also created, adapted and directed by McLean, the series was funded via grants from Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, Creative Partnerships Australia and the British Shakespeare Association.
Over the past ten years, Shakespeare Republic and it’s spin-off projects: Speaking Daggers, Dark Arcadia and Walking Shadows have showcased 120 actors, worked with 40+ crew, produced over 7 hours worth of Shakespeare and been watched in over 45 countries. And the work continues with Season Four of Shakespeare Republic currently in development.
Find out more about the series here: www.shakespearerepublic.com