Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

This podcast episode, which deals with race, Othello, and how the Elizabethans portrayed blackness onstage, offers a startling, new interpretation of Desdemona’s handkerchief that is changing the way scholars understand the play. Our guests are Ayanna Thompson, Professor of English at George Washington University and a Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America, and Ian Smith, Professor of English at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. They are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 14, 2016. © 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. Esther French is the web producer. Thank you to Tobey Schreiner at WAMU-FM in Washington, DC, Neil Hever at radio station WDIY in Bethlehem, PA, and Jeff Peters at Marketplace in Los Angeles.

The period when Shakespeare was writing was one torn by disagreements over the proper method of observing Christianity in England. Protestantism was at war with Catholicism and the Church of England often employed coercion and even violence to enforce its hegemony. The way Shakespeare handled these divisions is the topic of this podcast episode, "There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth, Than Are Dreamt Of In Your Philosophy." Our guest is David Scott Kastan, George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University, who explores these questions in his book, "Will To Believe: Shakespeare and Religion." David Kastan is interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © May 31, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Philip Kearney, Studio Operations Manager at the Yale University Broadcast Center, and from the News Operations Staff at NPR in Washington, DC.

When the British came to colonize the African continent in the middle of the 1800s, they brought Shakespeare with them. But after the British left power, it was often Shakespeare who leaders in African countries summoned to push back against the colonial experience — using his words to promote unity, elevate native languages, and critique the politics of the time. Barbara Bogaev interviews Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre at the University of Leeds and co-editor of “African Theatre 12: Shakespeare in and out of Africa.” Also featured in this podcast episode are Nigerian playwright Femi Osofisan, Kenyan playwright and novelist Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, and Tcho Caulker, a Sierra Leonean-American professor in the English Department at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © May 17, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, “I Speak of Africa,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Thanks to Caleen Sinette Jennings, David Schalkwyk, and Barbara Caldwell at UC-Irvine. We had help with recording from Gareth Dant at the University of Leeds, independent producer George Lavender, Ray Andrewsen at WQUN radio in Hamden, Connecticut, and Babatunde Ogunbajo at Midas Touch Studios in Ibadan, Nigeria.

We likely wouldn’t have half of Shakespeare’s plays without the First Folio of 1623. Imagine a world without "Macbeth," "Twelfth Night," or "Julius Caesar." Our guest on this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited is Emma Smith, a professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford and the author of “The Making of the First Folio.” In her book, she offers an intimate, step-by-step examination of how the First Folio was conceived, how Shakespeare’s plays were gathered, how the rights for them were obtained, how the book was laid out, and – most vividly – how it was assembled and printed. Emma Smith is interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © May 3, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, “This Precious Book,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Nick Moorbath at Evolution Studios in Oxford and from the News Operations Staff at NPR in Washington, DC.

Imagine a comic book series in which Shakespeare’s most popular characters team up in rival, warring camps bent on seizing control of the kingdom that is the world of Shakespeare’s plays. It’s called “Kill Shakespeare,” and Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col have been publishing the series since 2010. Barbara Bogaev interviewed the authors while they were at Comic-Con in New York in 2015 for the release of their new book — a volume that combines all the “Kill Shakespeare” comics in a single book, complete with annotations by leading Shakespeare scholars. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © April 20, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I Have O’erheard A Plot of Death Upon Him,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Bob Auld and Deb Stathopulos at the Radio Foundation in New York and Andrew Feliciano at Voice Trax-West Studios in Los Angeles.

Discovered in a treasure-filled parking lot in Leicester, England, an ancient manuscript proves to be the long-lost first play by none other than the young William Shakespeare from Stratford. That’s the premise of the latest work from the Reduced Shakespeare Company, “William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged),” which premieres at Folger Theatre in April 2016. The comedy troupe’s current directors are also its longest-serving performers, Austin Tichenor and Reed Martin. Barbara Bogaev interviews them about this new play and how it’s radically different from every other show they’ve written up to now. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © April 5, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Wendy Nicholson at public radio station KRCB in Rohnert Park, California and Jeff Peters at the studios of Marketplace in Los Angeles.

The Folger is the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, and the crown jewels of that collection are the 82 First Folios. To celebrate 400 years of Shakespeare, eighteen of these rare books are traveling the country throughout 2016 in the “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare” exhibition. But before they hit the road, each First Folio received a little TLC from Folger conservators up on the third floor. In this podcast episode, Renate Mesmer takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Werner Gundersheimer Conservation Laboratory. Renate Mesmer is the Folger’s Head of Conservation. Austin Plann-Curley is a project conservator in the lab. Both were interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © March 22, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. "To Repair Should Be Thy Chief Desire" was recorded and produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington.

In Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST, the magician Prospero conjures up a storm, charms his daughter to sleep, and uses his power to control Ariel and other spirits. Is this magic for real, or is Prospero pulling off elaborate illusions? Fascinated by this question and by Prospero’s relinquishing of magic at the play’s end, Teller (of the magic/comedy team Penn & Teller) co-directed a production of THE TEMPEST with Aaron Posner at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2015. In this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited, Teller joins Barbara Mowat, director of research emerita at the Folger and co-editor of the Folger Editions, to talk about magic in THE TEMPEST and other Shakespeare plays, as well as the attitudes about magic in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. Teller and Mowat are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © March 8, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode is called “Enter Prospero in His Magic Robes, and Ariel.” It was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Melissa Marquis at NPR in Washington, Rick Andrews and Casey Morell at Nevada Public Radio in Las Vegas, and Steven Martin at KPCC in Los Angeles.

Shakespeare, of course, is not just performed in English, and his work is not just acted on stage. Foreign-language adaptations of Shakespeare on film have a tradition that goes back as long as talking pictures have existed. For the past 20 years, these films have been the career focus of Mark Thornton Burnett, our guest on this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited. Mark Thornton Burnett is a professor of English at Queen’s University Belfast and the author of "Shakespeare and World Cinema." He was interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © February 23, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “Every Tongue Brings In A Several Tale” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Craig Jackson in the Queen's University Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast.

There’s something that never ceases to astound when it comes to Shakespeare – the way this 400-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 Coldplay and rewrites them as Elizabethan-style sonnets. The Tumblr where Didriksen has posted these sonnets has become so popular that he's published a book, "Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs." He was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © February 10, 2016. 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. We had 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. The actors who you hear reading the sonnets are Elyse Mirto and Bo Foxworth of The Antaeus Theater Company in Los Angeles.