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.
Edward St. Aubyn: Dunbar
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 84 The title character of King Lear becomes a media mogul in Edward St. Aubyn’s new novel, Dunbar, which retells the story of one of Shakespeare’s most dysfunctional families for the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Edward St. Aubyn…
Shakespeare in Swahililand
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 83 Two literary scholars discuss Shakespeare’s influence on the politics, history, and literary culture of East Africa. Edward Wilson-Lee, the son of white wildlife conservationists, spent his childhood in Kenya and now teaches Shakespeare at the University…
Thinking Shakespeare with Barry Edelstein
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 82 How do actors breathe life into Shakespeare’s texts? How do they take language that’s centuries old and make it sound so real and immediate? Barry Edelstein, the Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director at The Old Globe…
Shakespeare and War: Stephan Wolfert
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 81 In his one-man show Cry Havoc! actor Stephan Wolfert, a US Army veteran, draws together lines in Shakespeare’s plays spoken by soldiers and former soldiers—including Macbeth, Othello, and Richard III. He puts those words to the…
Leonard Bernstein and West Side Story
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 80 Without a doubt, American composer Leonard Bernstein’s most significant contribution to the world of Shakespeare was West Side Story, the 1957 smash Broadway hit adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written and created by Jerome Robbins, Arthur…
Shakespeare's Kitchen with Francine Segan
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 79 No oven dials, no electric gadgets. The kitchens of Shakespeare’s time looked very different from our kitchens today, and that’s not all that has changed when it comes to habits of diet, food preparation, and especially,…
Akala and Hip-Hop Shakespeare
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 78 “Is it Shakespeare, or is it hip-hop?” British poet, rapper, and educator Kingslee James Daley, who goes by the stage name Akala, likes to recite a passage and then challenge his audience with this question. Even…
Creating TNT's 'Will'
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 77 Will, the new series on TNT, tells stories derived from what we often call Shakespeare’s “lost years”—the time before he made a name for himself as a writer. The series takes advantage of that gaping hole…
Phyllida Lloyd and All-Female Shakespeare
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 76 In 2012, the Donmar Warehouse opened an all-female production of Julius Caesar, directed by Tony Award-nominated director Phyllida Lloyd and starring Harriet Walter as Brutus. The production was set in a womens’ prison, and would be…
The Royal Shakespeare Company's Digital Tempest
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 75 Twenty-first-century wizardry meets the seventeenth-century kind in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest with digital effects created by The Imaginarium, a performance-capture company that’s best known for movie and video game animations. This production…
Tracy Chevalier: New Boy
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 74 Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl With a Pearl Earring, takes on the tragedy of Othello in her latest novel, part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. But in a twist, she moves the action to a public…
The Globe to Globe Hamlet Tour
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 73 In 2014, Shakespeare’s Globe in London sent a group of actors on a two-year tour to perform Hamlet all around the world. They finished on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016, after having traveled…