Shakespeare's Hamlet will soon be preformed the way it was always meant to be — with pugs, thanks to one enterprising man and 196 generous backers.
Kevin Broccoli, a writer and actor in Providence, R.I., set up a Kickstarter for the project in early July, and it made its $5,000 funding goal just before the August 6 deadline.
In a phone interview with BuzzFeed, Broccoli explained that he plans on having his pug actors directed on stage by their handlers or owners. Meanwhile, human actors will read their lines off to the side of the stage.
Though Pug-let is now a reality, Broccoli told BuzzFeed that the project was intended to be a joke, as he couldn't imagine it would actually reach the $5,000 funding goal.
Broccoli said he was inspired by the success of the potato salad Kickstarter. “I wondered if there was a theater equivalent to that,” he said. Pugs, he decided, were it.
Aside from a few, mostly unsuccessful attempts to reach out to celebrities on Twitter, Broccoli didn't promote Pug-let all that much.
If I tweet @BarackObama about #puglet, is that crossing a line? https://t.co/A0KSX7dGPn
He still got some media attention. In an interview with Mashable last month, Broccoli joked that he wanted James Earl Jones to join the cast. The Mashable story was picked up by other outlets like Good Morning America, who took his jokes seriously.
Despite a long lull in donations and tongue-in-cheek-origins, Pug-let made it with just 15 or so minutes to spare.
"I could’ve done the best production of Hamlet ever and it wouldn’t have gotten the attention this got," he said.
Pug-let will be staged next September and will be filmed for wider viewing.
