Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

The family. The cottage. The age difference. The pregnancy. The children. The second best bed. The grave. We know so little about Anne Hathaway, but it hasn’t stopped us from speculating about her life for the past 300 years. In this episode, we talk to Katherine Scheil, a professor of English at the University of Minnesota, about the many, many versions of Anne Hathaway. In her new book, Imagining Shakespeare's Wife: The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway, Scheil looks at how historians, biographers, and novelists have repeatedly reinterpreted and reshaped Hathaway’s image over the centuries, and why. Scheil is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published September 18, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Thy Dear Self's Better Part" 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.

Since the 1990s, playwright and actor Steven Berkoff has been traveling the world performing a one-actor show called "Shakespeare’s Villains." It’s fitting, coming from the actor perhaps best known for playing Beverly Hills Cop’s Victor Maitland, that Berkoff promotes the show’s examination of Iago, Shylock, Richard III, the Macbeths, and others as “A Master Class in Evil.” Now, Berkoff has made a film of his performance. With additional material from "Henry V," it’s called "Shakespeare’s Heroes and Villains." We invited Steven Berkoff in to give us his thoughts on what Shakespeare’s villains have in common and why they hold such an enduring appeal. Berkoff is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast series. Published September 4, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I Am Alone the Villain of the Earth,” 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.

Here’s the assignment. Fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, with an a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g rhyme scheme. Now: add Taylor Swift. It’s astounding and gratifying that Shakespeare—a 450-year-old playwright—continues to pop up in popular culture. Our guest on this podcast episode is Erik Didriksen, who takes hit songs from artists like Taylor Swift and Eminem and rewrites them as Shakespearean sonnets. The Tumblr where Didriksen posted his sonnets became so popular that in 2015, he published a book, Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs. He was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev (This episode was originally broadcast February 10, 2016). From our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. ©Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, called "Press Among the Popular Throngs," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Ben Lauer is web producer. With help from Bob Auld and Deb Stathopulos at the Radio Foundation in New York and Phil Richards and Matt Holzman at KCRW public radio in Santa Monica, California. Erik Didriksen’s pop-sonnets are read by Elyse Mirto and Bo Foxworth of The Antaeus Theater Company in Los Angeles.

Joe Papp was responsible for some of modern American theater's most iconic institutions: New York City's free Shakespeare in the Park. The Public Theater. The whole idea of "Off-Broadway." We spoke with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan about Papp's life and work, from his hardscrabble childhood, through the frightening era of Joe McCarthy, to the founding of Shakespeare in the Park and the Public. Ken's epic oral history of the early years of the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater, "Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told," published in 2009. He spent untold hours with Papp and also talked with New York politicians, Broadway producers, and seeming everyone else who helped Papp make Shakespeare in the Park a reality, including actors James Earl Jones, George C. Scott, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Colleen Dewhurst, Tommy Lee Jones, and a Staten Island car-wash employee who would go on to play Romeo under the name of Martin Sheen. Ken is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast series. Published August 7, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. This podcast episode, "This Green Plot Shall Be Our Stage," 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. We had technical help from Lauren Cascio and Nick Bozzone at Formosa Commercials recording studio in Santa Monica, California.

In 2011, Ben Steinfeld and Noah Brody, co-directors of New York’s Fiasco Theater, were invited to an assisted living facility and nursing home just outside New York City to work with its residents on a production of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." Because it was The Lillian Booth Actors Home—a facility filled with retired singers, actors, dancers and musicians—Ben and Noah expected to work with a group of seasoned Broadway professionals. While there were some, the cast they finally assembled was largely anything but. Ben and Noah were invited on this adventure by filmmakers Jilann Spitzmiller and Hank Rogerson, who turned the process into a documentary called Still Dreaming. We talk about the experience with Ben Steinfeld and Hank Rogerson. Hank Rogerson is a filmmaker who, with Jilann Spitzmiller, produced Still Dreaming. Ben Steinfeld is co-artistic director of Fiasco Theater. He co-directed, with Noah Brody, the Lillian Booth Actors Home’s production of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." Hank and Ben are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast series. Published July 24, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “A Dream Past the Wit of Man,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

What did everyday life look like for women throughout Tudor society? A new social history, "The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women by Elizabeth Norton," introduces us not only to the restrictions, but also to some of the surprising freedoms that touched these women’s lives. Hear the stories of remarkable women who owned businesses, stood up to kings, and lived independently. Elizabeth Norton is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 10, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, Talkest Thou Nothing but of Ladies?, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

“How is it possible for a whole country to fall into the hands of a tyrant? That’s a deeply unsettling question that Shakespeare grappled with again and again.” Stephen Greenblatt’s new book, "Tyrant," explores tyranny in Shakespeare’s plays. In the 100th episode of Shakespeare Unlimited, we talk with the eminent Shakespeare scholar about characters like Richard III and Macbeth; how societies allow tyranny to pop up; and how and why Shakespeare used its depiction in his work to stir the audiences of his time. Stephen Greenblatt is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. "Tyrant" was published in 2018 by W. W. Norton & Company. Greenblatt is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 26, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "He Affects Tyrannical Power" was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Over the course of three summers in the 1950s, Arthur Lithgow, Meredith Dallas, and a troupe of actors they’d gathered performed every single one of Shakespeare plays, in rep, at the Antioch Shakespeare Festival, also known as Shakespeare Under the Stars, at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This podcast episode brings together the children of the festival’s founders to talk about their fathers’ work and its legacy: Tony Dallas, Robin Lithgow, and the Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award-winning actor John Lithgow. John, Robin, and Tony are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 12, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "I Live to Speak My Father’s Words," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

In 2012 the Royal Shakespeare Company staged the first-ever, high-profile, all-black British Shakespeare production, "Julius Caesar," set in Africa. The actor who played Brutus, Paterson Joseph, recently wrote a book about the experience called "Julius Caesar and Me: Exploring Shakespeare’s African Play." Paterson Joseph is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 29, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "Bear It, As Our Roman Actors Do," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

London in the time of William Shakespeare was a city in the midst of a phenomenal metamorphosis. During the course of Shakespeare’s professional life, the city experienced a meteoric transition, rocketing from the capital of the hinterlands to a cosmopolitan city on its way to becoming the capital of the western world. Stephen Alford, a professor of early modern British history at the University of Leeds and the author London's Triumph: Merchants, Adventurers, and Money in Shakespeare’s City, is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 15, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, Wander Up and Down to View the City, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.