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.
Stephen Marche on How Shakespeare Changed Everything
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 184 Even 400 years after his death, William Shakespeare’s influence is profound. But is it right to say that he changed everything? That’s the assertion Stephen Marche makes in his book How Shakespeare Changed Everything. In the…
Black Women Shakespeareans, 1821 – 1960, with Joyce Green MacDonald
Joyce Green MacDonald shares the history of four Black women Shakespeareans who took to the American stage from 1821 – 1960: The African Grove Theatre’s “Miss Welsh,” Henrietta Vinton Davis, Adrienne McNeil Herndon, and Jane White.
Cutting Plays for Performance, with Aili Huber
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 182 It might surprise you to learn that just about every production of a Shakespeare play that you’ve ever seen onstage has been cut, from student shows to Broadway revivals. Cutting Plays for Performance: A Practical and…
J.R. Thorp on Learwife
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 181 A banished queen receives word that her husband and three daughters are dead. Learwife, a new novel by J.R. Thorp, picks up where Shakespeare’s King Lear leaves off: The queen is Berte, Lear’s wife and Regan,…
Lena Cowen Orlin on The Private Life of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 180 Dr. Lena Cowen Orlin’s new book, The Private Life of Shakespeare, isn’t exactly a biography. Rather, it’s an exhaustive return to the primary sources that document Shakespeare’s life, a book that scholar James Shapiro says “demolishes…
Holidays in Shakespeare's England, with Erika T. Lin
Some holidays from early modern England, like Christmas and Easter, are still big dates on today’s calendars, while others, like Martlemas, Shrovetide, Midsummer, or The May, are less familiar. Dr. Erika T. Lin shares how people celebrated and how they might have felt about Shakespeare’s plays in a period when the line between holiday festivity and theater wasn’t quite clear.
Bringing Latinx Voices to Shakespeare, with Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa
Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa, both vocal coaches and actors, grew up speaking English and Spanish and share memories of being made to feel like their voices, dialects, and identities weren’t “good enough” for Shakespeare. They share how an actor might embody their text and how important it is for actors to bring their voces culturales to Shakespeare’s words.
Shakespeare's Language and Race, with Patricia Akhimie and Carol Mejia LaPerle
Dr. Patricia Akhimie and Dr. Carol Mejia LaPerle explore the ways that Shakespeare’s language—think descriptors like “fair,” “sooty,” and “alabaster”—constructs and enshrines systems of race and racism.
Shakespeare in Latinx Communities, with José Cruz González and David Lozano
Theater artists José Cruz González and David Lozano, authors of “On Making Shakespeare Relevant to Latinx Communities” in the book Shakespeare and Latinidad, talk with us about adapting and translating Shakespeare, performing and directing it in ways that make it relevant to Latinx audiences, and whether the Bard has a place at theater companies working to carve out a space for Latinx voices.
Shakespeare and the British Royal Family, with Gordon McMullan
Shakespeare wrote a lot about English kings and queens. Over the last three hundred years, a lot of English kings and queens have gotten really into Shakespeare.
Mike Lew on Teenage Dick
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 174 In Mike Lew’s play Teenage Dick, Richard, a high-school senior with cerebral palsy, is determined to become class president by any means necessary. Commissioned by theater artist Gregg Mozgala and Apothetae, the company Mozgala started to talk about…
Mona Awad on All's Well
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 173 In her new novel, All’s Well, author Mona Awad combines elements of All’s Well That Ends Well, Macbeth, and the 1999 movie Election to tell the story of Miranda Fitch, a theater professor with a mutinous…