Work hard with adapter of Shakespeare to depict tragic heroine (7)
I believe the answer is:
ophelia
'tragic heroine' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'work hard with adapter of shakespeare' is the wordplay.
'work' becomes 'op' (abbreviation for opus).
'hard' becomes 'h' (abbreviation used in pencil classifications).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'adapter of shakespeare' becomes 'elia' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'op'+'h'+'elia'='OPHELIA'
'to depict' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ophelia that I've seen before include "Hamlet's tragic girl friend" , "Female" , "girl in play" , "Hamlet's love interest" , "Laertes' sister (Shak.)" .)