Black History Month

Director Kenny Leon’s production of Much Ado About Nothing mesmerized audiences during the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park (now available on PBS’s Great Performances). Leon shares how he approaches a new production and how Shakespeare’s comedies speak to our present moment.

Black actor J.A. Arneaux starred as the title character in the Astor Place Company’s production of Richard III and published his own 19th-century edition.

Celebrate Black History Month with five books and one essay about race in early modern Europe and in Shakespeare’s plays.

Ira Aldridge as Aaron in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Since their revival by David Garrick in the early eighteenth century, Shakespeare and his plays have always generated a certain aura of celebrity, sometimes referred to as “Bardolatry.” Following in the footsteps…

Explore and enjoy podcast interviews about Shakespeare and the Black experience, important global figures, and the history of Shakespeare performance in Africa and the Caribbean.