Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
253 episodes - English - Latest episode: 23 days ago - ★★★★★ - 749 ratingsHome to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials. Advancing knowledge and the arts. Discover it all at www.folger.edu. Shakespeare turns up in the most interesting places—not just literature and the stage, but science and social history as well. Our "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast explores the fascinating and varied connections between Shakespeare, his works, and the world around us.
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Episodes
Ramie Targoff on Women Writers of the English Renaissance
March 26, 2024 20:48 - 37 minutes - 85.9 MBIn A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf famously imagined what might have happened if Shakespeare had a sister who was as gifted a writer as he was. She invents “Judith” Shakespeare, and concludes that this female genius would have been doomed. But that’s not the end of the story. If Woolf had read Mary Sidney, Aemelia Lanyer (nee Bassano), Anne Clifford, and Elizabeth Carey, she might have thought differently about the fate of her fictional Judith Shakespeare. Ramie Targoff's new book, Shake...
Green World: Michelle Ephraim on Discovering Shakespeare and Reevaluating The Merchant of Venice
March 12, 2024 18:42 - 33 minutes - 76.4 MBIn her new memoir, "Green World," Shakespeare scholar Michelle Ephraim tells the story of how she came to Shakespeare relatively late in her education. Although she didn’t grow up with Shakespeare, Ephraim became transfixed by "The Merchant of Venice" as a grad student. In particular, she found herself drawn to Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, and the mysteries of their relationship. That curiosity led Ephraim to discover a novel Biblical interpretation of some lines from the play as she research...
Eddie Izzard on Performing Hamlet Solo
February 27, 2024 22:34 - 32 minutes - 73.6 MBEddie Izzard has a long record of dramatic roles. But it’s her decades of experience as a stand-up comedian that prepared Izzard for her recent solo shows—first Great Expectations, and now Hamlet at New York’s Greenwich House Theatre. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published February 27, 2024. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is t...
Shakespeare and Disgust, with Bradley J. Irish
February 13, 2024 21:58 - 34 minutes - 79 MBMaybe there really was something rotten in Denmark. On this episode, we talk with Bradley J. Irish about disgust in Shakespeare. In his new book, Irish identifies the emotion, which combines physical revulsion and moral outrage, as one of the central thematic emotions in Shakespeare’s plays. In his close readings across the canon, Irish finds disgust everywhere: in Caius Martius Coriolanus’s disdain for ordinary Romans, in the over-indulgent food Antony eats in Egypt, in Henry IV’s preoccupat...
Rita Dove on Shakespeare and Her Poem of Welcome for the Folger
January 30, 2024 14:42 - 37 minutes - 84.9 MBWhen the Folger reopens on June 21 and you come to take a walk in our new west garden, look down at the garden bed. There, you'll see a new poem, written for the Folger by US Poet Laureate emerita Rita Dove. This week, she joins us on the podcast to read that poem aloud for the first time. Plus, Dove reflects on how writing for marble is different from writing for the page, and remembers the moment she discovered Shakespeare. Rita Dove is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Rita Dove served as th...
John Guy And Julia Fox on Their New Biography of Anne Boleyn
January 16, 2024 21:51 - 33 minutes - 77.2 MBEven after appearing in a Shakespeare play, historical romance novels, a Broadway musical, and prestige TV dramas, there's still more to learn about Anne Boleyn. A new biography by the team of husband-and-wife historians John Guy and Julia Fox takes a scholarly look at the evidence surrounding Anne’s rise and fall. They freshly examine well-known accounts, and also take in passing references in neglected sources. In particular, they focus on Anne’s years of training in the courts of Europe, ...
David and Ben Crystal Share Shakespeare Quotations for Your Everyday Life
January 02, 2024 21:06 - 35 minutes - 80.6 MBShakespeare has the perfect lines for riding into battle or stumbling around a stormy heath. But does he have the right stuff to take us on a daily commute or a trip to the grocery store? On this episode, David and Ben Crystal join us to talk about their new book, "Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for Life," which offers daily Shakespeare quotes you can apply to everyday life. The Crystals—David is a linguist, Ben is an actor—are the father-son duo behind the "Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dicti...
What Happened to the Princes in the Tower, with Philippa Langley
December 19, 2023 20:08 - 33 minutes - 76.5 MBThe most unforgivable crime in Richard III has to be when the king orders the murder of his two young nephews, Edward and Richard. But what if Richard III was framed? Philippa Langley is the amateur historian whose commitment to righting a historical wrong led to the discovery of Richard III’s remains a decade ago. Langley wasn’t a scholar—she was a screenwriter and a member of the Richard III Society. But she had become certain that Richard was the victim of Tudor propaganda, and that Shake...
Will Somer: Peter K. Andersson on Henry VIII's Court Fool
December 05, 2023 18:31 - 31 minutes - 71.7 MBWhat comes to mind when you think about a "court jester?" What if we told you that fools in the Tudor court didn’t look or sound anything like the zany clowns you have in mind? Historians don’t know much about Will Somer. We know he was Henry VIII’s court fool, but the details of his biography—and, crucially, his comedy—were never recorded. By Shakespeare’s time, Somer had become famous. Whenever a poet or playwright needed to reference a long-lost comedy great, they’d name-check Will Some...
Isabelle Schuler on Lady Macbeth and Queen Hereafter
November 21, 2023 18:48 - 30 minutes - 70.9 MBIsabelle Schuler’s debut novel Queen Hereafter attempts to fill in a backstory for Lady Macbeth. The book takes place in 11th century Scotland, where a king’s reign tended to be short and brutal. For her version of Lady M, Schuler didn’t rely on Shakespeare or his source material, Holinshed’s Chronicles. Instead, she looked to the annals and sagas that predate Holinshed. There, Schuler found Gruoch, who married Macbethad (the historical Macbeth) after her first husband died. Schuler talks wit...
400 Years of Shakespeare's First Folio, with Emma Smith
November 07, 2023 21:07 - 29 minutes - 67.2 MBThe First Folio—the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays—hit bookstores 400 years ago this November. Emma Smith of Oxford University tells us just what this famous book has been up to for the past four centuries. We explore notable collectors like Sir Edward Dering and our founders, Emily and Henry Folger; how the 18th-century slave trade supercharged the book’s value; how the 235 extant copies scattered across the world; and much more. Emma Smith is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. ...
The Bloomsbury Group and Shakespeare, with Marjorie Garber
October 24, 2023 20:23 - 31 minutes - 71.1 MBWe talk with Harvard Professor Marjorie Garber about how modernist writers of London’s Bloomsbury Group made Shakespeare their own. Garber’s most recent book—her twentieth—is Shakespeare in Bloomsbury. In it, she traces the influence of Shakespeare on the members of the Bloomsbury Group, that circle of early 20th-century intellectuals included novelists Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, painter Vanessa Bell, director Dadie Rylands, critic and biographer Lytton Strachey, economist John Maynard ...
Patrick Stewart on a Life Shaped by Shakespeare
October 10, 2023 20:31 - 31 minutes - 72.3 MBSir Patrick Stewart joins us on the podcast to talk about how Shakespeare has shaped his life. Stewart tells host Barbara Bogaev about his Yorkshire youth, his audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Starfleet Captain Jen-Luc Picard, and more. Stewart's memoir, "Making It So," is available now from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. From the Folger’s Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 10, 2023. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This epi...
Michael Patrick Thornton on Learning to Breathe Again with Shakespeare
September 26, 2023 19:48 - 29 minutes - 68.6 MBSometimes, the beauty of Shakespeare’s poetry takes your breath away. In the case of today’s guest, Shakespeare gave him his breath back. You may recognize actor Michael Patrick Thornton from his roles on TV series like Private Practice and The Good Doctor. Twenty years ago, Thornton had just started out in his acting career when he suffered two spinal strokes that nearly ended his life. He survived, but the strokes took away his ability to breathe and speak. A speech therapist helped Thornt...
The Many Lives of John Donne with Katherine Rundell
September 12, 2023 20:45 - 34 minutes - 63 MBWe talk with author Katherine Rundell about the extraordinary life —or should we say lives? — of John Donne, who wrote some of the 17th century’s most complex and intellectually dazzling poetry. Rundell, a fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and the author of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne takes us through Donne’s evolution from hotshot poet to penniless prisoner to rock star preacher. Rundell has also written six novels for children, a book for adults about children’s book...
Shakespeare and the Ocean, with Steve Mentz
August 29, 2023 18:40 - 33 minutes - 76.2 MBToday, we sail the seven seas with Shakespeare. In addition to being a dedicated swimmer, Steve Mentz is a professor at St. John’s University. His books, including 2009’s At the Bottom of Shakespeare’s Ocean, connect literary criticism with marine ecology. Mentz talks with Barbara Bogaev about Shakespeare’s oceanic metaphors, how much Shakespeare really knew about the ocean, and what plays like The Tempest, King Lear, and Twelfth Night can teach us as we face rising sea levels and more destru...
Farah Karim-Cooper on The Great White Bard
August 15, 2023 18:38 - 32 minutes - 73.9 MBCan you love Shakespeare and be an antiracist? Farah Karim-Cooper's new book, The Great White Bard, explores the language of race and difference in plays such as Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, and The Tempest. Karim-Cooper also looks at the ways Shakespeare’s work became integral to Britain’s imperial project, and its sense of cultural superiority. But for all this, Karim-Cooper is an unapologetic Shakespeare fan. It's right there in the subtitle of her book: "How to Love Shakespear...
Isabella Hammad on Enter Ghost
August 01, 2023 16:16 - 32 minutes - 74.8 MBA Palestinian production of Hamlet in the West Bank is the backdrop for Isabella Hammad’s new novel, Enter Ghost. Hammad’s first novel, the beautiful and sprawling The Parisian, won international acclaim in 2019. Granta included Hammad in its decennial “Best of Young British Novelists” list earlier this year. The narrator of Hammad’s new novel is Sonia, a British Palestinian actress who visits her sister in Israel to recover from the end of an affair. Despite wanting to take a break from th...
Mat Osman's The Ghost Theatre Imagines the Lives of Elizabethan London's Child Actors
July 18, 2023 20:21 - 31 minutes - 72.4 MBMat Osman's new novel, The Ghost Theatre, takes us flying over the rooftops of Elizabethan London and down into the gritty lives of its child actors. A historical novel set in a vibrant and sensuously reimagined Elizabethan London, the book's main character is Shay, the daughter of a clairvoyant who lives among a community who worship birds. When Shay meets a charming young actor named Nonesuch, she is drawn into the world of the children’s theater—that is, a theater whose actors and crew are...
Adrian Lester on Playing Rosalind, Henry V, Othello, and Hamlet
July 04, 2023 19:38 - 36 minutes - 84.5 MBWe could listen to Adrian Lester talk about acting all day… but he's a busy man, so we’ll settle for this 37 minute episode. The actor joins us to discuss some of his most famous performances, including Rosalind in Cheek by Jowl’s acclaimed 1991 all-male As You Like It, Hamlet with Peter Brook, and Henry V and Othello with Nicholas Hytner. Plus, Lester takes us back to his childhood in Birmingham and tells us about his patronage of the Everything to Everybody project and the Birmingham Shake...
Greg Doran on Forty Years of Directing Shakespeare
June 20, 2023 19:36 - 35 minutes - 81.8 MBOn today’s episode, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s former Artistic Director takes a look back at four decades of staging Shakespeare. Greg Doran’s career as a Shakespearean director began in the late 1970s, when he was a teenager. By the time he stepped down as the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company earlier this year, Doran had directed every play in the First Folio, capping off the feat with an acclaimed production of Cymbeline. In between, Doran helmed era-defining product...
David West Read on & Juliet
June 06, 2023 19:14 - 29 minutes - 67.1 MBStart with Shakespeare’s "star-crossed" lovers and fold in the songs of Swedish pop hitmaker Max Martin… what do you get? The hit Broadway musical & Juliet, currently running at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in New York and nominated for nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. The show imagines what would happen if Juliet woke up after Romeo’s death and decided not to end it all. Instead, she goes on a trip to Paris with some new friends, including Shakespeare and...
Robert O'Hara on Directing Richard III
May 23, 2023 19:59 - 33 minutes - 77.1 MBRobert O’Hara joins us to talk about directing last year’s Shakespeare in the Park production of Richard III, starring Danai Gurira of Marvel's "Black Panther." He tells us about gathering a diverse cast of actors with disabilities, wanting to “trigger” his audiences, and what it’s like to get a call about directing Shakespeare in the Park (spoiler: it’s a whirlwind). Robert O’Hara is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. A film of Richard III premiered on PBS’s Great Performances on Friday, May 19...
Publishing Shakespeare's First Folio, with Chris Laoutaris
May 09, 2023 19:31 - 29 minutes - 66.4 MB2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the publishing of the First Folio, the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays. Eighteen of those plays, including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest, had never been published before they appeared in the First Folio, which means that without it, they might have been lost. But how did the First Folio come to be? It turns out that this book's story has enough twists to fill out a five-act play. It has its own heroes, villains, and political subte...
Lolita Chakrabarti on Adapting Hamnet for the Stage
April 25, 2023 20:52 - 35 minutes - 65.8 MBLolita Chakrabarti is the playwright of Red Velvet, about 19th-century Black actor Ira Aldridge, and has adapted Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and Yann Martel's The Life of Pi for the stage. Now, she has adapted Maggie O'Farrell's bestselling novel Hamnet for the stage. Hamnet is currently playing at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre. The play tells the story of a young Agnes Hathaway and William Shakespeare as they fall in love and start a family, and the psychological damage ...
James Ijames on Fat Ham
April 11, 2023 18:44 - 32 minutes - 75.3 MBHamlet has been adapted, retold, and reinvented countless ways. But you’ve never seen a version of Hamlet quite like James Ijames’s Fat Ham, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is now playing on Broadway. In Fat Ham, Ijames takes the outline of Hamlet and transposes it to the present day American South. Instead of “funeral baked meats,” Fat Ham serves up barbecue—expertly cooked by Rev, the Claudius character. The queer, Black Hamlet character is named Juicy. He isn’t on break fro...
Marion Turner on The Wife of Bath: A Biography
March 28, 2023 21:51 - 34 minutes - 63.7 MBIn her book The Wife of Bath: A Biography, Marion Turner reacquaints us with a remarkable, vital character: Alison, Wife of Bath, the most famous fictional pilgrim in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Turner puts Alison into her historical context in 14th- and 15th-century England and the literary tradition, arguing that the Wife of Bath is literature’s first “ordinary woman,” neither a paragon of virtue nor a vicious caricature. Instead, she’s funny, sexual, opinionated, competent—a recog...
Patrick Page on King Lear and Shakespeare's Villains
March 14, 2023 21:38 - 40 minutes - 74.4 MBYou might recognize Patrick Page from films like Spirited, or shows like The Gilded Age, or from his Broadway roles as Hades in Hadestown for which he was nominated for a Tony. But Page is also an accomplished Shakespearean, with a long relationship with Washington, DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he’s played Prospero, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Iago, and now King Lear. Page talks with Barbara Bogaev about getting inside Lear’s head and his long fascination with Shakespeare’s villains. Kin...
Artificial Intelligence Goes to English Class, with Jennifer Black, John Ladd, and Laura Turchi
February 28, 2023 21:29 - 37 minutes - 85 MBThe Folger: Hey ChatGPT! Could you write a six line Shakespearean monologue in iambic pentameter about an interview with Jennifer Black, Laura Turchi, and John Ladd about the challenges and opportunities that ChatGPT presents in the English classroom? Thank you! ChatGPT: Of course, I'd be happy to write a Shakespearean monologue on that topic! Here it is: Oh, how ChatGPT may bring the bard to light, And in the English classroom, set things right. With Jennifer, Laura, John to lead the way, ...
Lucy Wooding on Tudor England: A History
January 31, 2023 21:45 - 32 minutes - 73.4 MBWe can’t seem to get enough of the Tudor dynasty and its soap-opera twists. But in her book Tudor England: A History, Lucy Wooding argues that to really know the Tudors you must look past the famous names and racy plotlines. While Wooding visits the period’s kings and queens—was Henry VIII the lusty man we imagine? How “bloody” was Mary? What about Henry VII?—she also leaves the court to roam England’s streets and fields. Wooding’s book is a beautifully written account of period's society, c...
Debra Ann Byrd on Becoming Othello: A Black Girl's Journey
January 17, 2023 20:17 - 35 minutes - 80.6 MBTheater-maker Debra Ann Byrd has played Othello in three different productions: first, in a staged reading in 2013, then again in 2015 and 2019. Each time, she learned a little bit more about Othello, and about herself. In her one-woman show Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey, Byrd recounts her experience discovering herself while playing Shakespeare’s tragic hero. The show reaches back to her childhood in Spanish Harlem, her mother’s tragic death, and her own struggles with depression....
Ian Smith on Black Shakespeare
January 03, 2023 22:07 - 39 minutes - 91.2 MBIn his new book, Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race, Dr. Ian Smith of Lafayette College argues that Shakespeare’s plays engage with questions of race and early modern encounters between Africans and Europeans in ways that the discipline of Shakespeare studies have been hesitant to acknowledge. Ian Smith returns to the podcast and talks with Barbara Bogaev about how we can develop our “racial literacy” and read race in plays like Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet. Ian S...
Talene Monahon on Her New Revenge Comedy, Jane Anger
December 20, 2022 21:49 - 34 minutes - 79 MBIn Talene Monahon’s new play Jane Anger, a narcissistic William Shakespeare is wrestling with writers’ block while working on King Lear. When Will’s former flame Jane Anger shows up, he knows she can help him finish the play. But Jane wants something in return. She needs Will’s help to publish a pamphlet she’s written that calls out sexist male playwrights for the wrongs they’ve done to women everywhere. That pamphlet is a real historical document: “Jane Anger: Her Protection for Women,” pub...
Fiona Ritchie on Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble
December 06, 2022 20:35 - 33 minutes - 77.4 MBYou may not have heard of Sarah Siddons, but if you’ve seen a production of Macbeth recently, you may have experienced her influence. In the late 18th century, Siddons became one of the first celebrity actors, for her performances in roles including Queen Katherine in Henry VIII, Constance in King John, Volumnia in Coriolanus, and, of course, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Her brother and frequent co-star John Philip Kemble became the first stage “director” in our sense of the word, even though th...
Billy Collins on Writing Short Poems and Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets
November 22, 2022 20:13 - 34 minutes - 79.6 MBBilly Collins is one of America’s most well-known poets. He served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003. His poetry collections frequently show up on bestseller lists, and his popular readings—three of which we’ve been lucky to host at the Folger—are warm and laughter-filled affairs. In a wide-ranging interview, Collins talks about humanizing Shakespeare and other literary titans, delves into his own work and inspirations, and reads from his newest collection, Musical Tables. He is interv...
Adrian Noble on How to Direct Shakespeare
November 08, 2022 20:26 - 28 minutes - 65.2 MBA director makes a play add up to more than the sum of its parts. That's something Adrian Noble knows as well as anyone. Noble has directed numerous productions of Shakespeare’s plays, including Kenneth Branagh’s breakout performance as Henry V in 1984 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He served as artistic director of the RSC from 1991 to 2002, and directed musicals like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on London’s West End as well as operas like Verdi’s Macbeth, Don Carlo, and Otello. Now, Noble h...
Ian McKellen on Richard III, Macbeth, and Gandalf
October 25, 2022 17:55 - 32 minutes - 73.3 MBIn the second part of our special extended interview with Sir Ian McKellen, he tells us about some of his most famous roles: playing Macbeth opposite Dame Judi Dench, King Richard III with a screenplay he co-wrote, and Gandalf the Grey in The Lord of the Rings films. McKellen is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 25, 2022. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the a...
Ian McKellen on Playing Hamlet
October 11, 2022 19:46 - 29 minutes - 27.2 MBHe played Hamlet in his thirties… and again in his eighties. In between? Edgar, Romeo, Leontes, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Iago, Richard III, Prospero, and King Lear. Plus, of course, Magneto and Gandalf. On this episode, we talk with Sir Ian McKellan. Last year, he played Hamlet in an age-blind production of the play at the Theatre Royal Windsor, returning to the role for the first time since 1971. Then, at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, McKellen played Hamlet again, speaking the part alongside a ...
What Shakespeare Thought About the Mind, with Helen Hackett
September 27, 2022 19:30 - 34 minutes - 78.8 MBIf you’ve ever been watching Hamlet and asked yourself, “What on earth is Hamlet thinking?!” you’re not alone. But to figure that out, you might have to figure out what Hamlet—and Shakespeare—think about what it means to think. That’s the argument University College London professor Helen Hackett makes in her new book, The Elizabethan Mind: Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty, a wide-ranging study of the many conflicting ideas that Elizabethans had about their own minds. She con...
John Adams Gives Antony and Cleopatra the Operatic Treatment
September 12, 2022 06:09 - 35 minutes - 65.2 MBCelebrated American composer John Adams’s newest opera takes its inspiration from Shakespeare. . Adams talks with host Barbara Bogaev about how he turned a five-act play into a two-act opera—which scenes got the hook, new lines written in the style of the Bard, and what Shakespeare may have thought of the play’s characters. The Sunday, September 18, 2022 performance will be livestreamed at 2pm Pacific, and on-demand for 48 hours beginning Monday, September 19, 2022 at 10am Pacific / 1pm East...
Paterson Joseph: Julius Caesar and Me (Rebroadcast)
August 16, 2022 18:26 - 34 minutes - 27.6 MBThis summer marks the tenth anniversary of a landmark production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Their 2012 Julius Caesar was Britain’s first ever high-profile production of a Shakespeare play with an all-Black cast—a milestone that came 76 years after it was first done in the US and 15 years after it was first done in Canada. The production featured Paterson Joseph as Brutus, and he was so impressed by the experience that he wrote Julius Caesar and Me: Exploring Shakespeare’s African Play...
Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the Tabard Inn, with Martha Carlin (Rebroadcast)
August 02, 2022 18:48 - 19 minutes - 14.9 MBWhat if Shakespeare and his friends had gotten together and carved their names on the wall of an inn made famous by Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales? In 2015, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee history professor Dr. Martha Carlin found an anecdote in a little-known, unpublished manuscript that suggests such a link between these two great English writers. Unfortunately, the Tabard Inn burned down in the great Southwark fire of 1676, so there’s no way of knowing the truth for sure. But even if i...
Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the Tabard Inn, with Martha Carlin (Rebroadcast
August 02, 2022 18:48 - 19 minutes - 14.9 MBWhat if Shakespeare and his friends had gotten together and carved their names on the wall of an inn made famous by Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales? In 2015, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee history professor Dr. Martha Carlin found an anecdote in a little-known, unpublished manuscript that suggests such a link between these two great English writers. Unfortunately, the Tabard Inn burned down in the great Southwark fire of 1676, so there’s no way of knowing the truth for sure. But even if i...
The Robben Island Shakespeare, with David Schalkwyk (Rebroadcast)
July 20, 2022 14:55 - 19 minutes - 15 MBWhile Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on South Africa's Robben Island, one of the other political prisoners, Sonny Venkatrathnam, managed to retain a copy of Shakespeare's complete works. Venkatrathnam secretly circulated the book to many of his fellow prisoners—including Mandela—asking them to sign their names next to their favorite passages. As South African Shakespeare scholar David Schalkwyk explains to interviewer Rebecca Sheir, there is something special about "a book that had passed t...
The Robben Island Shakespeare, with David Schalkwyk
July 20, 2022 14:55 - 19 minutes - 15 MBWhile Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on South Africa's Robben Island, one of the other political prisoners, Sonny Venkatrathnam, managed to retain a copy of Shakespeare's complete works. Venkatrathnam secretly circulated the book to many of his fellow prisoners—including Mandela—asking them to sign their names next to their favorite passages. As South African Shakespeare scholar David Schalkwyk explains to interviewer Rebecca Sheir, there is something special about "a book that had passed t...
Peter Brook (Rebroadcast)
July 05, 2022 20:33 - 38 minutes - 29.8 MBLegendary director Peter Brook died last week at the age of 97. Brook was one of theater’s most influential directors. His 1970 A Midsummer Night’s Dream is among that play’s most lauded and best-known productions. His 1968 book The Empty Space is a classic of theater writing. Over the course of his career, he directed actors including John Gielgud, Glenda Jackson, Ben Kingsley, Adrian Lester, Vivienne Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield, Patrick Stewart, and Frances de la Tour, and won mu...
Andrea Mays on The Millionaire and the Bard (Rebroadcast)
June 21, 2022 22:42 - 28 minutes - 21.8 MBHenry Clay Folger paid a world record price for a book—not once, but twice—as he became the world's leading collector of Shakespeare First Folios. The Folger Shakespeare Library celebrated its 90th birthday this past April. Did you ever wonder how all of our books got here? We talk with economist and author Andrea Mays about The Millionaire and the Bard, her 2015 biography of Henry Clay Folger, who founded the Folger together with Emily Jordan Folger, his wife. Mays shares some of the fascin...
Andrea Mays on The Millionaire and the Bard - Rebroadcast
June 21, 2022 22:42 - 28 minutes - 21.8 MBHenry Clay Folger paid a world record price for a book—not once, but twice—as he became the world's leading collector of Shakespeare First Folios. The Folger Shakespeare Library celebrated its 90th birthday this past April. Did you ever wonder how all of our books got here? We talk with economist and author Andrea Mays about The Millionaire and the Bard, her 2015 biography of Henry Clay Folger, who founded the Folger together with Emily Jordan Folger, his wife. Mays shares some of the fascin...
Joe Papp and Shakespeare in the Park, with Kenneth Turan (rebroadcast)
June 07, 2022 19:29 - 35 minutes - 28.3 MBJoe Papp was responsible for some of modern American theater's most iconic institutions: New York City's free Shakespeare in the Park. The Public Theater. The whole idea of "Off-Broadway." We spoke with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan about Papp's life and works, from his hardscabble childhood, through the frightening era of Joe McCarthy, to the founding of Shakespeare in the Park and The Public. Published in 2009, Turan's epic oral history of the early years of the New York Shake...
Joe Papp and Shakespeare in the Park, with Kenneth Turan (Rebroadcast)
June 07, 2022 19:29 - 35 minutes - 28.3 MBJoe Papp was responsible for some of modern American theater's most iconic institutions: New York City's free Shakespeare in the Park. The Public Theater. The whole idea of "Off-Broadway." We spoke with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan about Papp's life and works, from his hardscabble childhood, through the frightening era of Joe McCarthy, to the founding of Shakespeare in the Park and The Public. Published in 2009, Turan's epic oral history of the early years of the New York Shake...