Shakespeare & Beyond

Austin Tichenor recommends an adventure novel starring a young Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, who uncover a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.

Lolita Chakrabarti shares historical context about pioneering 19th-century Black actor Ira Aldridge, the subject of her play Red Velvet, including a notable detail about his funeral in Poland which she learned after she’d written the play.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom sings a tune about blackbirds to keep up his courage when he finds himself in strange circumstances.

A Folger fellow shares her research into the language of slavery in early modern England, and more specifically, the use of that language in the works of William Shakespeare.

Find out what’s onstage at Shakespeare theaters across the United States this summer.

Take our quiz to get matched with one of 20 books from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s virtual book club inspired by Shakespeare and the early modern era.

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth II visited the Folger in 1991? In honor of her Platinum Jubilee, dig into some royal history in the Folger collection.

Director Sam Gold shares what he loves most about Macbeth, why it stands out from other Shakespeare tragedies he’s directed, and how his ideas about the play changed over time.

Robert Eggers’s “The Northman” is not an adaptation of “Hamlet,” but a film in conversation with Shakespeare’s play, Austin Tichenor writes.

Hamlet sings! A new opera version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is onstage now at the Metropolitan Opera, with tenor Allan Clayton resuming the title role that he played for the opera’s world premiere at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2017. Read our…

Jacob Ming-Trent shares a favorite moment from his Shakespeare in the Park performance as Falstaff in “Merry Wives,” which premieres on PBS’s Great Performances May 20.

Thanks to its peculiar reproductive cycle, distant migration, and haunting melodies, the cuckoo may hold the title for most folklore among Shakespeare’s birds.