In 10 Things I Hate About You, Kat and Bianca attend Padua High School. The school is a fictional American high school created for the film, whose title and characters draw heavily on William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.
The name “Padua” refers to Padua, an Italian city that Shakespeare used as the setting for The Taming of the Shrew. The film transfers that setting to a modern Seattle-area school environment while retaining Shakespearean character parallels.
The movie stars Julia Stiles as Kat Stratford, Larisa Oleynik as Bianca Stratford, Heath Ledger as Patrick Verona, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cameron James. Its school setting is one reason the film is often grouped with teen romantic comedies as well as Shakespeare adaptations.