Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Shakespeare adaptations are a proud tradition. Prokofiev turned ROMEO AND JULIET into a ballet. Verdi turned MACBETH and OTHELLO into operas, and THE TAMING OF THE SHREW and TWELFTH NIGHT have been converted by Hollywood into teen comedies. But there’s a different type of Shakespeare adaptation that’s a lot harder to get right – that’s when someone takes an existing piece of popular entertainment and reimagines it as if it might have been written by Shakespeare. As Ian Doescher can tell us, that can be hard to get right. He’s the author of six books under the series title, William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, based on the hit films featuring Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and the rest. As you’ll hear, making this work has taken far more thinking and craftsmanship than you might imagine. Ian is interviewed by Stephanie Kaye. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © December 1, 2015. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “I Feel Now The Future In The Instant” 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 Timmy Olmstead at WAMU-FM in Washington and Lisa Dougherty and the staff at Digital One recording studios in Portland, Oregon.

Henry Clay Folger paid a world record price for a book—not once, but twice—as he became the world's leading collector of Shakespeare First Folios. In this episode, economist and author Andrea Mays talks with Neva Grant about some of the fascinating financial and personal details of Folger's life, and in particular, how he went about collecting all these books. Folger, of course, did not limit himself to First Folios. He also, together with his wife Emily Jordan Folger, assembled the world’s largest Shakespeare collection—and founded the Folger Shakespeare Library. Mays's book "The Millionaire and the Bard" was published earlier this year. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © November 18, 2015. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “Mine own library with volumes that I prize”was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington.

Shakespeare and his plays are woven deeply into the culture of the Caribbean, both white and black. Even after centuries of British colonial rule came to an end, Shakespeare endured, as we hear in this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited. There’s a long tradition in the British Caribbean of using Shakespeare quotations in competitions to demonstrate rhetorical skill, whether in the schoolyard or at rural village gatherings. After slavery was abolished in the British colonies, schools were established to steep the empire’s newest subjects in British literature, particularly Shakespeare, imparting British values along the way. But anti-colonialists have also claimed Shakespeare for their own, particularly THE TEMPEST and the character of Caliban. Our guests on this episode are Dr. Giselle Rampaul, a lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad, and Dr. Barrymore A. Bogues, Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. They are interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © November 4, 2015. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “A Vision Of This Island” 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, Courtney Coelho at Brown University, and Kerri Chandler at Wiluvbeats Studios in Barataria, Trinidad. We also want to say a special “thank you” to Fabienne Viala, a professor in the school of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick in the UK. Early on in our research on this topic, Dr. Viala was uncommonly generous in offering her time and her deep understanding of this history. She also introduced us to Giselle Rampaul.

For the majority of audience members, Shakespeare is brought to life by the actors and actresses who speak his lines. Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells considered all of the most outstanding Shakespeare performers, from past to present, and essentially created his own personal Hall of Fame. He’s written about these artists in a book called "Great Shakespeare Actors: Burbage to Branagh." Wells sifted through firsthand accounts from those who saw these great performers on stage to get a sense of what the actors brought to Shakespeare and why it was worth going to see them. Stanley Wells is interviewed by Stephanie Kaye. This podcast episode is called “O, there be players that I have seen play.” From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © October 21, 2015. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Written and produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is associate producer. Edited by Esther Ferington and Gail Kern Paster. We had help from Timothy Olmstead at WAMU-FM in Washington, DC. We’d also like to thank Beverley Hemming, the Corporate Communications Manager at the Stratford-on-Avon District Council for allowing Dr. Wells to speak from their recording unit at Elizabeth House.

The majority of Shakespeare’s plays call for singing — sometimes it’s part of the action, sometimes it seems to spring out of nowhere. And while the lyrics to the songs appear to have always been a part of the text, the musical notes for those lyrics have been lost over the years. Over four centuries of staging Shakespeare, directors have explored different approaches to filling in these musical gaps. David Lindley, professor emeritus of literature and music at the University of Leeds, is our guest for this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited. His book, SHAKESPEARE AND MUSIC, appeared in 2006 in the Arden Critical Companions series. He is interviewed by Neva Grant. This episode is called “Ay, prithee, sing.” From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © October 7, 2015. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Written and produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is associate producer. Edited by Esther Ferington and Gail Kern Paster. We had help from Melissa Marquis at NPR in Washington and Gareth Dant in the University of Leeds Communications Office.

1606 was a critical year for Shakespeare’s creative career. It was the year in which he wrote KING LEAR, MACBETH, and ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. It was also a time in which the king of England, James I, faced internal political challenges that threatened to tear the nation apart. James Shapiro is our guest for this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited. His new book, THE YEAR OF LEAR, examines how the events of 1606 touched Shakespeare’s life and whether they are reflected in his work. James Shapiro is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. THE YEAR OF LEAR: SHAKESPEARE IN 1606, will be published October 6, 2015, by Simon & Schuster. James Shapiro is also a member of the Folger’s Board of Governors. He was interviewed by Neva Grant. This podcast episode is called “I Have Years On My Back.” “I have years on my back…” –KING LEAR (1.4.39) From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published September 23, 2015. © 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 Melissa Marquis at NPR in Washington and Larry Josephson at the Radio Foundation in New York.

Just what exactly does it mean to edit the works of Shakespeare, particularly since we have no surviving manuscript copies? Why is it that new editions of the plays continue to be published? In this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited, Rebecca Sheir interviews Paul Werstine and Suzanne Gossett about the how and why of editing Shakespeare. Since 1989, Paul Werstine has been the co-editor of the Folger Editions, along with Barbara Mowat. He’s also a professor of English at King’s University College in London, Ontario. Suzanne Gossett is co-general-textual editor of "The Norton Shakespeare, 3rd Edition" and professor emerita of English at Loyola University in Chicago. She has also edited the Arden Shakespeare edition of Pericles and is a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America. The title of this episode is "The Dedicated Words Which Writers Use." "The dedicated words which writers use / Of their fair subject, blessing every book." -SONNET 82 From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published September 9, 2015. © 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 Aileen Humphreys at WAMU-FM in Washington and Mary Gaffney at WBEZ, Chicago.

"Shakespeare Not Stirred" is the creation of two English professors who combined their love of the cocktail hour and their love of Shakespeare to write a collection of Bard-inspired cocktail and hors d’oeuvre recipes. This thoroughly modern book (released September 1, 2015) contains instructions for concocting drinks like “Kate’s Shrew-driver” and “Othello’s Green-eyed Monster.” The images of Shakespeare characters that accompany the recipes are all taken from the Folger Shakespeare Library collection – with some clever Photoshop work done to insert glasses in the hands of the characters. In this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited, Rebecca Sheir interviews Caroline Bicks, a professor at Boston College, and Michelle Ephraim, a professor at Worcester Polytechnical Institute, about their inspiration for the book. This episode is called “Fetch Me A Stoup Of Liquor.” "Go, get thee in, and fetch me a stoup of liquor." (HAMLET, 5.1.61-62) This episode was produced by Richard Paul and Garland Scott. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Thomas Devlin at public radio station WGBH in Boston.

If you were to make a list of the people who have left an enduring imprint on how the world interprets, understands, and receives Shakespeare, who would you choose? About a decade ago, Peter Holland, the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies at Notre Dame, and Adrian Poole, the former Chair in English Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, set out to create a compendium that summed up the work of these influential people. They chose performers, scholars, writers, critics, theater directors, and others. The final set of books in their opus, an 18-volume reference work called "Great Shakespeareans," was released in 2013. In this podcast episode, Peter Holland explains the rationale he and Adrian Poole used to decide just who got to be listed as the world’s great Shakespeareans. Peter Holland was interviewed by Rebecca Sheir. The title of this podcast episode is “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.” —TWELFTH NIGHT(2.5.149-150) From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 29, 2015. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Richard Paul and Garland Scott. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Mandy Kinnucan in the Notre Dame Media Relations department.

What if Shakespeare and his friends had gotten together and carved their names on the wall of an inn made famous by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales? The intriguing possibility of such a link between these two great English writers stems from an anecdote found in a little-known manuscript. Unfortunately, The Tabard Inn burned down in the great Southwark fire of 1676, so there’s no way of knowing the truth for sure. But the Shakespeare graffiti story grabs our imagination even if it was only hear-say, and that tells us something about the intense hunger out there for more details about the playwright’s life. Our guest is Martha Carlin, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She was interviewed by Rebecca Sheir. The title of this podcast is “Betwixt tavern and tavern.” "Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern… " —HENRY IV, PART 1 (3.3.43-45) From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 15, 2015. © 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 Lisa Nalbandian at Wisconsin Public Radio.