Shakespeare & Beyond

What were some of our most popular stories this year? Let’s take a look. Chopping chocolate. Photo by Teresa Wood. Recipe adaptations and blog posts about food culture We published several recipes in conjunction with First Chefs: Fame and Foodways…

Our top Shakespeare Unlimited podcast episodes from 2019 feature interviews with authors, directors, actors, and scholars. Happy listening! 1. Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches In 1994, Deborah Harkness was doing research at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library when she stumbled…

Have you seen some of the smallest books in the Folger Shakespeare Library collection? We’ve been sharing miniature Folger Finds on Instagram throughout the year as these books joined a rotating display of items from the James L. Harner Collection of…

Why weren’t Shakespeare’s sonnets included in the First Folio? And what was the effect on the way that later readers and critics considered Shakespeare’s total body of work? Jane Kingsley-Smith of Roehampton University, London, explores these questions in the below…

We’ve got seven Shakespeare-themed holiday gift ideas for you, selected from the Folger Shop and all less than $20. Find something for your friends, your family members, or yourself. And if you would like more ideas, see our eight present…

Did you know that the Pilgrims have a presence in the church where William Shakespeare was baptized and buried? A stained glass window that bears the inscription, “The Gift of America to Shakespeare’s Church,” shows the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth…

What are the connections between traditional folktales and Shakespeare’s plays? Charlotte Artese, an English professor at Agnes Scott College in Georgia, sets out to explore these folktale sources in a new anthology of stories, Shakespeare and the Folktale, published October…

The Folger Shakespeare Library building is filled (inside and outside) with inscriptions of quotations by famous writers praising Shakespeare. See if you can successfully fill in the blanks for these quotes

We asked our Twitter followers to share their favorite stories from outdoor Shakespeare performances: incredible actors, unexpected animal visitors, dramatic weather events, and more. Tell us your story using #SummerShakesMemories. https://twitter.com/Zorrah/status/1144605770702442496 https://twitter.com/NateMetcalf/status/1154529272117071873 https://twitter.com/jaybaltz/status/1145838297803087872 https://twitter.com/ERLathrop/status/1143612005577822208 https://twitter.com/AlexJArmstrong/status/1146132142868578304 https://twitter.com/GoodTickleBrain/status/1146021764276871168 https://twitter.com/michaelmc_hugh/status/1144529821114019841 https://twitter.com/MysticCindi/status/1144474064397848581 https://twitter.com/xmacdonald/status/1152337120117366784

Kimberly Gilbert as Richard III. Photo by Brittany Diliberto. Bootleg Shakespeare is not your typical night at the theater: The actors show up on the day of the performance with only their lines memorized; after a few hours of rehearsals,…

Here in This Island We Arrived: Shakespeare and Belonging in Immigrant New York is a 2019 book from Elisabeth H. Kinsley that explores Shakespeare performance in late 19th- and early 20-century Manhattan during a time of profound demographic change, when…

In choosing which Shakespeare play to translate for the Play on! project, playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil let herself be influenced by dramaturg Liz Engelman, who was attracted to the themes of Measure for Measure and their resonance in today’s world.…