Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

The curses associated with the Scottish play. Using a real skull for the Yorick scene in "Hamlet." Over the centuries, these and other fascinating theatrical anecdotes have attached themselves to the plays of William Shakespeare. Many of these stories have been told and re-told, over and over, century after century – with each new generation inserting the names of new actors into the story and telling the story as if it just occurred. So “One night David Garrick was backstage” becomes, “So one night Edmund Kean was backstage” which then becomes, “So one night Richard Burton was backstage.” And so on. Our guest, Paul Menzer, is a professor and the director of the Shakespeare and Performance graduate program at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. His book "Anecdotal Shakespeare: A New Performance History" was published by Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare in 2015 He was interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published September 20, 2016. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “Truths Would Be Tales, Where Now Half Tales Be Truths” 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. We had technical help from the News Operations Staff at NPR in Washington, DC. http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/actor-anecdotes

Today, the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s works, printed in 1623, can sell for millions of dollars. But the First Folio wasn’t always valued so highly. In this podcast episode, two experts in the First Folio and the book trade, Adam Hooks and Dan De Simone, chart the rise of the First Folio—how and when this book became a cultural icon with such a dizzying price tag. Adam Hooks is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Iowa and author of “Selling Shakespeare: Biography, Bibliography, and the Book Trade.” Dan De Simone is the Eric Weinmann Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library. They were interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published September 6, 2016. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “A Volume Of Enticing Lines” 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. We had technical help from Jim Davies, Chief Engineer at Iowa Public Radio in Iowa City and the News Operations Staff at NPR in Washington, DC. http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/how-first-folio-became-a-star

Being a patient in Shakespeare’s time was an adventure. You might be told to drink liquid gold or syrup of violets. You might undergo a violent purgation to take the bad humors out of your body. They might draw blood from your ankle or your arm. But while these prescriptions seem laughable today, elements of the thinking they were based on have come all the way down to us in the 21st century. That thinking, though it might seem unrelated to Shakespeare's stories, is surprisingly present in his writing. Neva Grant interviews Gail Kern Paster and Barbara Traister about medicine in the era when Shakespeare was writing. Gail Kern Paster is the Folger’s director emerita, and Barbara Traister is professor emeritus of English at Lehigh University and the author of “The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon Forman.” From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published August 23, 2016. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “I Know My Physic Will Work With Him” 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. We had technical help from the News Operations Staff at NPR in Washington, DC. http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/elizabethan-medicine

"Othello" is the story of a tragic murder and suicide involving a dark-skinned general and his aristocratic, white-skinned bride. Who should direct it? Who’s “allowed” to? What if a white director and the actor he’s cast as Othello simply do not see eye-to-eye on the play’s subtext, the Moor’s motivations, and what the audience is supposed to take away from the production? That conflict is at the heart of a one-man show currently being performed around the country called "American Moor." In it, a black actor – the play’s author, Keith Hamilton Cobb – stands on stage and addresses an invisible, white director who simply does not “get” Othello. Their disagreement allows for a searing exploration of the gulf between black and white Americans that some like to believe simply does not exist. Keith Hamilton Cobb is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published August 9, 2016. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Is This the Noble Moor?”, 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. We had help from Bill Lancz at the Marketplace Studios in Los Angeles. http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/american-moor

This episode shifts slightly from our usual intense focus on Shakespeare. Instead, we are talking about the world that he inhabited, or at least a small part of that world: the kitchen. Kitchens, and what goes on in them, come up in Shakespeare’s plays with surprising frequency, whether directly or, more often, obliquely. Our guest is Wendy Wall, an English professor at Northwestern University and director of the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities. Her 2015 book Recipes for Thought: Knowledge and Taste in the Early Modern English Kitchen explores household recipes and what they tell us about English culture when Shakespeare was writing. She is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 26, 2016. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “You Will Hie You Home to Dinner,” 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. We had help from Allyssa Kaitlyn Pollard in the Northwestern University Media Relations Department and Jeff Peters at the studios of Marketplace in Los Angeles. http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/food-wendy-wall

In the decades after Shakespeare's death, his works temporarily fell out of favor. His renaissance is usually credited to actor-manager David Garrick, who staged a Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769. Riding Garrick's coattails, an artistic entrepreneur named John Boydell later opened one of England's first art galleries, devoted to paintings of scenes from Shakespeare plays. The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery has now been recreated online. Our guest is Janine Barchas, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin and curator of the Folger's upcoming exhibition, "Will & Jane." Barchas led the team that reconstructed Boydell's gallery as a website. We talked with her about the 18th-century Shakespeare craze, how Boydell capitalized on it, and the detective work required to recreate his gallery. Janine Barchas is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. You can see the digital Boydell Gallery at www.whatjanesaw.org From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 12, 2016. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Painting is Welcome,” 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. We had help from Jacob Weiss at Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS) at the University of Texas at Austin and Bill Lancz at the studios of Marketplace in Los Angeles.

In 2012, Andrew Dickson watched a Shakespeare play in London that set him off on a quest. When it ended, he had traveled to Poland, Germany, India, China and all across the United States. He chronicled his travels in a book titled "Worlds Elsewhere: Journeys Around Shakespeare’s Globe" that was published in 2015. He explains now what the play was that set him off on this journey, and just what it was he was hoping to find. Andrew is interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 29, 2016. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved.This podcast episode, “There Is A World Elsewhere,” 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. We had technical help from the Sound Company in London and the News Operations Staff at NPR in Washington, DC.

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.