Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

In Act 3, scene 4 of Othello, Othello tells Desdemona that the handkerchief he gave her was “dyed in mummy.” What does that mean? According to Lafayette College’s Ian Smith, it means the handkerchief was dyed black. In this episode, originally broadcast in June 2016, we talk to Smith and Ayanna Thompson 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. Ian Smith is a professor of English at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. When we published this episode, Ayanna Thompson was a professor of English at George Washington University. She is now Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University. Smith and Thompson are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Originally published June 14, 2016. Re-broadcast August 20, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Teach Him How To Tell My Story,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Ben Lauer is the web producer. With technical help from Tobey Shreiner at WAMU-FM in Washington, DC, Neil Hever at radio station WDIY in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Jeff Peters at the Marketplace Studios in Los Angeles.

You probably have a mental image of the Victorian Era. Straitlaced, rigid, and repressed, right? Meet Charlotte Cushman, born 1816. She was an actor known for playing traditionally male roles, like Romeo and Hamlet. She managed her own career and demanded to be paid as much as her male counterparts. She spent her life in a series of romantic relationships with women. And she was an international superstar. She was so famous and beloved that newspapers called her by just her first name, like Madonna or Beyoncé. She was “Our Charlotte.” In this episode, originally broadcast in 2014, we talk about “Our Charlotte” and her remarkable career with Lisa Merrill, a professor in the Department of Performance Studies at Hofstra University and author of When Romeo Was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and her Circle of Female Spectators. Merrill is interviewed by Rebecca Sheir. From our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Originally broadcast October 22, 2014 and rebroadcast with an updated introduction August 6, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, “I Will Assume Thy Part in Some Disguise,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Esther Ferington and Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had help from Larry Josephson and Robert Auld.

What would it be like if Shakespeare had written Mean Girls? How about Back to the Future: "Be ready for audacious episodes. Whither we go we have no need of roads." In 2013, Quirk Books began releasing a series of books by Ian Doescher that reimagined the Star Wars films as if they had been written by Shakespeare, featuring iambic pentameter and all the other literary devices we associate with the Bard. Doescher has run out of Star Wars films for now, so he’s left the “galaxy far, far away” and turned his attention to two different films. Doescher’s newest books are William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls and William Shakespeare’s Get Thee Back to the Future. We talk to Doescher about how he chooses films to adapt, his writing process, and how his kids react when he points out naturally-occurring iambic pentameter (they aren’t impressed). Ian Doescher is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 23, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, “What Imitation You Can Borrow,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Andrew Bates at Voice Tracks West in Studio City, California and from Ryan Mock, Kelsey Woods and Laurilee Stapleton at Digital One Studios in Portland, Oregon.

David Garrick’s 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-on-Avon was like an 18th-century Fyre Festival. From overcrowding to pouring rain, the event was a disaster. Yet the Jubilee also revived interest in Shakespeare and put his hometown on the map. How did the Jubilee get started, how did it go wrong, and how did it end up having such an incredible impact? The University of Southern California’s Andrew McConnell Stott explores those questions and more in his new book, What Blest Genius?: The Jubilee that Made Shakespeare. Andrew McConnell Stott is a professor of English and divisional dean of undergraduate education at the University of Southern California. What Blest Genius?: The Jubilee that Made Shakespeare was published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2019. Stott was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 9, 2019 © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “The Rain It Raineth Every Day,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. With technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.  

Have you ever wanted to know more about Ophelia? What does she think about the events at Elsinore? What is her relationship to Hamlet? Whose account of her death should we believe? Shakespeare’s Hamlet leaves lots of questions about Ophelia unanswered. That’s where Lisa Klein’s Ophelia comes in. Klein’s 2006 YA novel approaches the events of Hamlet from Ophelia’s point of view, suggesting what might happen to her between the lines and scenes of Shakespeare’s play. Now, Ophelia is a major motion picture starring Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley as Ophelia and Naomi Watts as Gertrude. On the eve of the film’s theatrical release, we talk to Lisa Klein about her book and its heroine. Klein is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published June 25, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, ““You Speak Like A Green Girl,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Eric French at WOSU public radio in Columbus, Ohio.

Director Casey Wilder Mott’s 2017 film adaptation of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" sets Shakespeare’s story in modern Los Angeles, where aspiring filmmakers, eccentric artists, studio execs, and surfers bounce off one another in a riot of color and music. We talk to Mott and Fran Kranz, who co-produced the film and plays Bottom, about why LA is a perfect fit for their movie, other recent film adaptations of Shakespeare, and a notable ass. Mott and Kranz are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published June 11, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “A Very Good Piece of Work, I Assure You,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

A new production of Kiss Me, Kate is on Broadway now. It features Cole Porter’s memorable music and Kelli O’Hara and Will Chase as Lilli Vanessi and Fred Graham, a bickering divorced couple thrown together when they’re booked to star in a production of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. But 1948’s Kiss Me, Kate also duplicates the sexism of the Shakespeare play at its center.  You aren’t alone if you’re wondering, “Does Kiss Me, Kate work in 2019?” We asked Will Chase and Amanda Green. Chase (TV’s Nashville and Broadway’s Something Rotten) stars in the production as Fred Graham, Kiss Me, Kate’s Petruchio figure. Amanda Green is the Tony-nominated lyricist and composer who wrote additional material for the production, a key decision-maker when it came to updating the musical’s book and lyrics. Chase and Green talk to Barbara Bogaev about wrestling with Kiss Me, Kate treatment of women and finding the love at the heart of its script.

The great Glenda Jackson is back on the stage. In 1992, the Emmy and two-time Academy Award winner was elected to Parliament. She spent the next 23 years in Britain’s House of Commons. Since returning to theater in 2015, she’s played King Lear on London’s West End and won a Tony Award for her performance in Edward Albee’s "Three Tall Women." Now, she’s playing Lear again in a new production, directed by Sam Gold, on Broadway. We were thrilled to get Glenda Jackson into the studio to talk about playing a king, opportunities for women in the arts, and the intricacies of her performance in the new production of "King Lear." Jackson is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 14, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “What Have You Performed?”, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Technical help came from Robert Auld, Helena DeGroot, Deb Stathopulos, and Larry Josephson at The Radio Foundation studios in New York.

After over thirty years as the artistic director of Washington, DC’s Tony-winning Shakespeare Theatre Company, Michael Kahn is retiring. Kahn has directed Off-Off-Broadway, Off-Broadway, and on Broadway. He directed Measure for Measure for Joe Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park. He ran, at various points, the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut, the McCarter Theatre, and the Acting Company. From 1992 – 2006, he was the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School. As a director and as a teacher, Kahn has helped to usher in a new style of Shakespearean acting, one that combines the psychologically-grounded American “Method” with a British emphasis on text, tone, and technique. As Kahn opens The Orestia, the last production of his final season at Shakespeare Theatre Company, we brought him into the studio to talk about Shakespearean performance throughout the 20th century, Shakespeare’s continued relevance, and reading Shakespeare with his mother. Michael Kahn is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published April 30, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, ““I Am Able to Instruct or Teach,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. With technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Andrew Bates at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Meg McCluskey and Archie Moore at Clean Cuts studios in Washington, DC. Audio clips from Shakespeare Theatre Company productions are from the James A. Taylor Collection of WAPAVA at the University of Maryland.

You don’t need a ticket to see the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s most recent production of Hamlet. You don’t even need to leave your house. All you need is a virtual reality device. Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit is an hour-long virtual reality adaptation of Shakespeare’s play that puts you in the center of Shakespeare’s tragedy. We asked Commonwealth Shakespeare Company director Steve Maler and cinematographer Matthew Niederhauser of the virtual reality company Sensorium about creating the experience. They talk about the joys, challenges, and opportunities that come with adapting Shakespeare for virtual reality. How can VR augment the experience of watching Hamlet? What makes watching Hamlet in VR different from watching the play onstage or on your TV? Can VR make Shakespeare’s plays more accessible? Maler and Niederhauser are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit is a co-production with Google, and was created in partnership with public television station WGBH in Boston. Watch Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit at WGBH.org/Hamlet-360 or on YouTube. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published April 16, 2019. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I Am Thy Father’s Spirit,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, Kevin O'Connell at the PRX Podcast Garage in Boston, and Larry Josephson and Ben Ellman at The Radio Foundation in New York.