This summer, Shakespeare in the Ruff presents A Witch in Algiers, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest by award-winning playwright Makram Ayache. In the original, the magician Prospero summons a storm and plots vengeance against the conspirators who abandoned him and his daughter on a remote island. Our adaptation, A Witch in Algiers, decentres Prospero and gives new voice to two neglected characters from the original play: Caliban, Prospero’s servant on the island; and Sycorax, Caliban’s mother, who lived on the island prior to Prospero’s arrival and is never seen, only mentioned, in The Tempest. Ayache weaves a backstory for Sycorax and Caliban that reaches beyond Shakespeare’s island, across the Mediterranean Sea, to the markets and souks of Algiers in North Africa. Blending the Bard’s verse with Ayache’s powerful poetic voice, A Witch in Algiers is a story of loss and defiance that resonates with our current political moment.