Shakespeare Unlimited podcast
![ShaxUnlimited_masthead](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2022/12/ShaxUnlimited_masthead.jpg?resize=1200%2C400&gravity)
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.
![Nancy Robinette (Nurse), Nicole Lowrance (Juliet), and Julie-Ann Elliott (Lady Capulet), Romeo and Juliet, directed by PJ Paparelli, Folger Theatre, 2005.](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/11/ShakespeareGirlhood_crCarolPratt.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Shakespeare and Girlhood
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 60 How does Shakespeare portray girls and girlhood in his plays, and what do those portrayals tell us about life in Elizabethan and Jacobean England? Our guest for this Shakespeare Unlimited episode, Deanne Williams of York University…
![Sandra Mae Frank signs murder as the player queen in Hamlet, directed by Ethan Sinnott at Gallaudet University, 2012.](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/10/Shakespeare-sign-language-Gallaudet.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Shakespeare in Sign Language
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 59 Many people would probably tell you that what they love most about Shakespeare is his language. So what does Shakespeare become when the words are translated into a different language, one that uses visual signs rather…
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Shakespeare in Solitary
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 58 For ten years, Laura Bates, a professor at Indiana State University, taught Shakespeare to a group of inmates considered the “worst of the worst” – men incarcerated in the solitary confinement unit at Indiana’s Wabash Valley…
![Ian Merrill Peakes as Macbeth and Paul Morella as Banquo. Macbeth, directed by Teller and Aaron Posner, Folger Theatre, 2008.](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/09/022137_cropped.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Anecdotal Shakespeare
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 57 The curses associated with the Scottish play. Using a real skull for the Yorick scene in Hamlet. Over the centuries, these and other fascinating theatrical anecdotes have attached themselves to the plays of William Shakespeare. Many…
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How Shakespeare's First Folio Became a Star
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 56 Today, the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s works, printed in 1623, can sell for millions of dollars. But the First Folio wasn’t always valued so highly. In this podcast episode, two experts in the First Folio…
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Elizabethan Medicine
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 55 Being a patient in Shakespeare’s time was an adventure. You might be told to drink liquid gold or syrup of violets. You might undergo a violent purgation to take the bad humors out of your body.…
![Keith Hamilton Cobb in 'American Moor' at Anacostia Playhouse, 2015. Photo: C. Stanley Photography.](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/08/American20Moor20credit20C20Stanley20Photography.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Keith Hamilton Cobb on American Moor
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 54 Othello is the story of a tragic murder and suicide involving a dark-skinned general and his aristocratic, white-skinned bride. Who should direct it? Who’s “allowed” to? What if, say, a white director and the actor he’s…
![Frontspiece from](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/07/Wendy20Wall20Kitchen20Banner201124x248.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
The Food of Shakespeare's World
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 53 This episode shifts slightly from our usual intense focus on Shakespeare. Instead, we are talking about the world that he inhabited, or at least a small part of that world: the kitchen. Kitchens, and what goes…
![Janine Barchas stands in front of a projection of whatjanesaw.org, the website that also features the recreated Boydell Gallery.](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/07/JanineBarchas_WhatJaneSaw2039020px20high.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Recreating the Boydell Gallery
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 52 In the decades after Shakespeare’s death, his works temporarily fell out of favor. His renaissance is usually credited to actor-manager David Garrick, who staged a Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769. Riding Garrick’s coattails, an artistic entrepreneur named…
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Worlds Elsewhere
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 51 In 2012, Andrew Dickson watched a Shakespeare play in London that set him off on a quest. When it ended, he had traveled to Poland, Germany, India, China and all across the United States. He chronicled…
![Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century actors in the role of Othello. (l-r) Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, Tommaso Salvini, Thomas Grist, Edmund Kean. Images from the Folger Shakespeare Library collection.](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/06/OthelloBlackface.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Othello and Blackface
On the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast, Ian Smith and Ayanna Thompson talk about Elizabethan modes of blackface—which included covering a performer’s body with dyed cloth to simulate blackness—and how Smith’s insight changes how we understand Othello.
![Shylock (Matthew Boston, right) works out the terms of his loan with Antoine (Craig Wallace) in Aaron Posner’s District Merchants, a variation of The Merchant of Venice. Folger Theatre, 2016.](https://images.folger.edu/uploads/2016/06/DistrictMerchantsReligion_crTWood.jpg?fit=10%2C10)
Shakespeare and Religion
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 49 The period when Shakespeare was writing was one torn by disagreements over the proper method of observing Christianity in England. Protestantism was at war with Catholicism and the Church of England often employed coercion and even…