Episode 28: A Chat With the Mrs.

What was it like to be married to Willy Shakes?? No one can know because there are no words that come directly from Anne Shakespeare. But Yvonne Hudson has spent half a lifetime researching and embodying this enigmatical woman for her solo show, Mrs. Shakespeare. 

In this episode we got a chance to ask her about the life of a woman in the 1600s and many other interesting things that anyone who's learning about Shakespeare might want to know.

You can follow her on Facebook at Mrs. Shakespeare, or find here here:  

Website: tiny url.com/ mrs shakespeare

or

https://yhudson0.wixsite.com/mrsshakespeare

Email: [email protected]

And more about her show:

Mrs Shakespeare, Will's first & last love

Written, compiled and performed by YVONNE HUDSON

Directed by HELEN M. MEADE

About Yvonne Hudson as Mrs Shakespeare

With some help from the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), playwright and actress Yvonne Hudson introduces the mother of Shakespeare's children and the woman who bravely waited for him in the longest-running solo show about Anne Hathaway Shakespeare (c.1556-1623). It's likely Will and Anne's families knew one another. The couple married in 1582 and had three children--Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. His success as a playwright and theatre entrepreneur in London led to 23 years mostly living apart from his family who remained in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Sonnets, songs, and soliloquies--with references from some 20 plays--are woven into Yvonne's imaginative script developed through ongoing research including work in Stratford-Upon-Avon and London. Mrs Shakespeare had several Off-off Broadway runs and was staged by Rod Kaats in 2002 at Tribeca Playhouse in lower Manhattan. The show has been seen in diverse venues from Pitt's Nationality Rooms (some 30 performances), and Prime Stage's studio in Pittsburgh to the Tower of London and a restored music hall in a South Dakota prairie town. Most recently she performed the show in the historic Rivers of Steel Pump House on the site of the Battle of Homestead, April 2019.

Ms. Hudson's solo appearances have included Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst as well as Mrs Shakespeare (both with PA Partners in the Arts grants) at her Poets Corner Arts series at the historic Calvary United Methodist Church in Allegheny West.There she has directed and produced literary and theater events including the first staged reading of Ireland's Shakespeare by Michael McGovern. A co-founder of the annual Handel's Messiah Sing-Along Concert, she was among Calvary choir members who sang the works at New York's Carnegie Hall in November 2018. She mostly recently appeared as Juliet's Nurse with Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks.

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