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.
Naomi Miller on Mary Sidney and Imperfect Alchemist
Naomi Miller’s novel Imperfect Alchemist is about one of early modern England’s most significant literary figures: poet, playwright, translator, and scientist Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke.
Shakespeare and Game of Thrones
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 159 Based on his knowledge of Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays, Harvard’s Dr. Jeffrey R. Wilson knew just how HBO’s Game of Thrones would play out. Jon Snow, the illegitimate son, was a Richard III type, who would win…
Shakespeare, Science, and Art
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 158 Does Hamlet live in a Ptolemaic or Copernican solar system? Is Queen Mab a germ? Which falls faster: a feather or the Duke of Gloucester? In Shakespeare’s time, new scientific discoveries and mathematical concepts were upending…
Fat Rascals: In the Kitchen with John Tufts
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 157 Actor John Tufts was playing Hal in a production of Henry IV, Part 1 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Every night, he would call Falstaff a “roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly.” Hal means…
The Victorian Cult of Shakespeare
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 156 For most of the 1700s, Shakespeare was considered a very good playwright. But in the 1800s, and especially during the Victorian period, Shakespeare became a prophet. Ministers began drawing their lessons from his texts. Scholars wrote…
Black Lives Matter in Titus Andronicus
What does it mean to read a play like Titus Andronicus with questions of race in mind? Scholar David Sterling Brown, who has written extensively about that play, discusses the ways that such a reading reveals an entire dimension of racial imagery and racial violence.
The Show Must Go Online
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 154 March 2020. Theaters were beginning to cancel ongoing and upcoming productions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Glasgow-based actor Robert Myles had just lost a gig that would have taken him through April. One night,…
Writing About the Plague in Shakespeare's England
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 154 Between 1348 and the early years of the 18th century, successive waves of the plague rolled across Europe, killing millions of people and affecting every aspect of life. Despite the plague’s enormous toll on early modern…
Tana Wojczuk on Charlotte Cushman's Radical Life
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 152 Charlotte Cushman was one of the most famous American theater artists of the mid-19th century. And while she was known for her Lady Macbeth and Oliver Twist’s Nancy, she was acclaimed for her performances as Romeo…
Richard II on the Radio
Joining forces with public radio’s WNYC during the pandemic, the Public Theater did something that hadn’t been done before: a four-night serialized Richard II with expert analysis and stories from cast members. We go behind the scenes to learn how they did it.
Maggie O'Farrell on Hamnet
Anne and William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died in 1596, when he was 11 years old. We don’t know too much more about him. But author Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Hamnet, delves into his story and comes away with…
Directing Shakespeare
No two theater directors approach Shakespeare’s plays in the same way. When it comes to setting, blocking, costuming, casting, and cutting, there are countless ways directors can shape Shakespeare to make his works their own.