For centuries, the lasting and widespread influence of Shakespeare’s plays has been attributed to their supposed universality and timelessness. However, scholars have recently grown skeptical of this universal Bard, while pointing to the historical and contemporary appropriation of Shakespeare to Euro-imperialist ends. Shakespeare’s place in university classrooms and contemporary theatres has also been questioned in recent cultural debates, which show a growing skepticism towards the relevance of Shakespeare in multicultural and postcolonial societies. Such debates raise questions about the (im)possibility of a decolonial or decolonizing engagement with Shakespeare’s plays, and the (in)compatibility of the English canon with Indigenous and non-Eurocentric cultural expressions. This project, which links literary criticism with performance studies to confront urgent questions about the future of both Shakespeare studies and performance, provides the first extensive study of Indigenous approaches to Shakespeare’s plays in Australia. In doing so, it aims to revise common assumptions linked to the Western conflictual model that presupposes a strict divide between Indigenous and Western/settler cultures, while asking how performative encounters between Indigenous-Australian philosophies and Shakespeare’s texts change our understanding of the potential meaning of both contemporary performances of Shakespeare’s drama in multicultural contexts and the plays themselves.