The Shakespeare & Beyond blog features a wide range of Shakespeare-related topics: the early modern period in which he lived, the ways his plays have been interpreted and staged over the past four centuries, the enduring power of his characters and language, and more.
Shakespeare & Beyond also explores the topics that shape our experience of Shakespeare today: trends in performance, the latest discoveries and scholarship, news stories, pop culture, interesting books, new movies, the rich context of theater and literary history, and more. As the word “beyond” suggests, from time to time Shakespeare & Beyond also covers topics that are not directly linked to Shakespeare.
Questions or comments? You can reach us at shakespeareandbeyond@folger.edu.
This month, Shakespeare theaters across the country are getting ready for the holidays with stories of Scrooge-i-ness defeated. Even Malvolio learns a lesson!
Two Tempests blow onstage this month, in Atlanta, GA, and Bethesda, MD. Meanwhile, Macbeth conquers Seattle. Here’s what the Folger’s Shakespeare theater partners are up to in November.
“In both ‘Rosaline,’ a charming teen romcom streaming on Hulu, and ‘& Juliet,’ a splashy new musical making its Broadway debut this week, Shakespeare’s tragedy becomes a surprising springboard for music, comedy, and investigations into narrative ownership,” writes Austin Tichenor.
Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero Santos write about stage adaptations of “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” that engage with Día de los Muertos traditions, reframing Shakespeare’s meditations on life and death according to Indigenous and Latinx worldviews.
In his plays Shakespeare deploys the cormorant as a symbol of insatiable hunger and gluttony, drawing also on the bird’s reputation as a portent of doom and evil.
King John (2022): Jessika D. Williams in “King John,” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Photo by Jenny Graham. The fall harvest is ready, and this year, we’ve got a bumper crop of Shakespeare plays! If you’re in the mood for…
“Spiritually speaking, many of us confronted with the thought of death perform the psychological equivalence of hiding in a box with our knees under our chin: Donne hunted death, battled it, killed it, saluted it, threw it parties.” Read more…
Shakespeare’s plays provide ample opportunity for dramatic deaths onstage, and 18th-century English actors like David Garrick transformed simple stage directions in the text into “stirring set-pieces,” as Laurence Senelick writes in the below excerpt from his new book, “The Final…
