Shakespeare Unlimited podcast
William Shakespeare and his works are woven throughout our global culture, from theater, music, and films to new scholarship, education, amazing discoveries, and more. In our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast, Shakespeare opens a window into topics ranging from the American West, to the real history of Elizabethan street fighting, to interviews with Shakespearean stars. As you’ll hear, he turns up in surprising places, too—including outer space. Join us for a “no limits” tour of the connections between Shakespeare, his works, and our world.
Women Performers in Shakespeare's Time, with Clare McManus
Think there were no women onstage in Shakespeare’s time? Think again. Scholar Clare McManus tells us where and how women performed in early modern Europe: emerging from mechanical seashells in elaborate court masques, dancing across tightropes, and on the stages of the European Continent.
How Pericles Inspired Mark Haddon's novel The Porpoise
Shakespeare Unlimited:Episode 131 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time author Mark Haddon’s books take twists and turns that sometimes seem to only make sense in the context of his stories. Shakespeare’s Pericles takes twists and turns that…
Shakespeare in Immigrant New York
Shakespeare Unlimited:Episode 130 In the 19th century, a new influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe and Italy arrived in the United States. Many of them settled in the Lower Manhattan. Reformers wondered how these new arrivals could be assimilated into…
John Milton's Copy of Shakespeare
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 129 In September, the world of literary scholarship got some big news. It was discovered that a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, housed in the Free Library of Philadelphia, once belonged to John Milton, author of Paradise…
Iqbal Khan
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 128 “If, with Shakespeare, we can thrill and tease an audience into embracing unknowing, that is one of the most important gifts that we can give,” says director Iqbal Khan. Khan has directed at Shakespeare’s Globe, in…
Shakespeare and Opera, with Colleen Fay
We ask Colleen Fay which Shakespeare operas work and which ones don’t.
If Shakespeare Wrote Mean Girls
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 126 What would it be like if Shakespeare had written Mean Girls? How about Back to the Future? In 2013, Quirk Books began releasing a series of books by Ian Doescher that reimagined the Star Wars films as…
Andrew McConnell Stott on the Shakespeare Jubilee
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 125 David Garrick’s 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-on-Avon was like an 18th-century Fyre Festival. From overcrowding to pouring rains, the event was a disaster. Yet the Jubilee made Shakespeare a national hero and put his hometown on…
Lisa Klein on Ophelia
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 124 Have you ever wanted to know more about Ophelia? What does she think about the events at Elsinore? What is her relationship to Hamlet? Whose account of her death should we believe? Shakespeare’s Hamlet leaves lots…
Casey Wilder Mott and Fran Kranz on their LA Midsummer
Shakespeare Unlimited Episode 123 Director Casey Wilder Mott’s 2017 film adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream sets Shakespeare’s story in modern Los Angeles, where aspiring filmmakers, eccentric artists, studio execs, and surfers bounce off one another in a riot of…
The Gender Politics of Kiss Me, Kate
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 122 A new production of Kiss Me, Kate is on Broadway now. It features Cole Porter’s memorable music and Kelli O’Hara and Will Chase as Lilli Vanessi and Fred Graham, a bickering divorced couple thrown together when…
Glenda Jackson
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 121 The great Glenda Jackson is back on the stage. In 1992, the Emmy and two-time Academy Award winner was elected to Parliament. She spent the next 23 years in Britain’s House of Commons. Since returning to…