Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

"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.

"Last thing he did, dear queen, He kissed—the last of many doubled kisses— This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart." ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1.5.45-48) Hong Kong, a former British colony, has been staging and teaching Shakespeare plays for nearly 150 years. In this episode from our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast, we see how Shakespeare is stretched to tell a story of contemporary Hong Kong and colonialism in two important adaptations of ROMEO AND JULIET—"Crocodile River" and "Young Lovers". Then, in the 1980s, a local tradition of performing Shakespeare plays begins to merge with another art form—opera. Alexa Huang, Professor of English of George Washington University, is an expert on Sino-European cultural exchange and the globalization of Shakespeare. Adele Lee is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Greenwich in England and the author of numerous articles about Shakespeare on film in Hong Kong. Huang and Lee are interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 1, 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 Laura Green at the Sound Company.

For most of us, “seeing Shakespeare” means experiencing live actors in a theater. But for more than 100 years, Shakespeare’s words, plots, settings and characters have also been brought to life on film. Shakespeare on film has never been like Shakespeare on stage. In the earliest years of the medium, it simply couldn’t be. Then, as film matured, directors realized that the medium offered new ways to tells Shakespeare’s stories that were impossible to reproduce on stage. Along the way, trends, like multiplex theaters, the rise of independent films, and teen comedies, and directors from Orson Welles to Laurence Olivier to Julie Taymor and Joss Whedon have reshaped and reimagined Shakespeare. Our guest, Sam Crowl, is a professor of English at Ohio University. He’s also the author of "A Norton Guide to Shakespeare and Film," "Shakespeare at the Cineplex," and "Shakespeare Observed." He was interviewed by Rebecca Sheir. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 17, 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 Tobey Schreiner at public radio station WAMU in Washington and Steven Skidmore at WOUB, a public radio station in Athens, Ohio.

"Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth, . . . Have stooped my neck under your injuries And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds" —RICHARD II (3.1.16, 19–20) Shakespeare's plays are well stocked with merchants of Venice, gentlemen of Verona, lords and ladies of France, and other foreign characters. But what did he—and his audiences—really know about such distant places and people? In this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited, Rebecca Sheir poses that question about France and Italy—the two foreign lands that Shakespeare wrote about the most. Her guests are Deanne Williams, author of "The French Fetish from Chaucer to Shakespeare" (2004) and associate professor of English at York University in Toronto, and Graham Holderness, author of "Shakespeare and Venice" (2013) and professor of English at the University of Hertfordshire. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 20, 2015. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. Edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. With help from Laura Green at The Sound Company and Jonathan Charry at public radio station WAMU.

"Blood hath been shed ere now, i' th' olden time, Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal; Ay, and since too, murders have been performed Too terrible for the ear." —MACBETH(3.4.91–94) From the duels in ROMEO AND JULIET to a brutal mob in JULIUS CAESAR, street fighting transforms several of Shakespeare's plays. How much, though, does it reflect (or differ from) the mean streets of his day? Rebecca Sheir talks violence in Elizabethan times with Vanessa McMahon, author of "Murder in Shakespeare's England" (2004), and Casey Kaleba, an expert in Elizabethan street crime and one of the Washington, DC, area's most sought-after fight coaches for stage plays. ---------------------------- From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 6, 2015. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. Edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. With help from Folger Magazine editor Karen Lyon, Juliet Bury at Richmond, the American International University in London, Laura Green at The Sound Company, and Jonathan Charry at public radio station WAMU.

"It is not so. Thou hast misspoke, misheard. Be well advised; tell o'er thy tale again. It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so." —KING JOHN (3.1.5–7) Even if you’re not a Shakespeare scholar, there are things you have learned about Shakespeare and his plays throughout your life – that it’s bad luck to say the name of “the Scottish play” or that Shakespeare hated his wife. Are any of these stories true? And whether they are or not, what do they tell us about previous eras, and our own? Rebecca Sheir talks Shakespeare myths with Emma Smith, professor of English at the University of Oxford—and co-author, with Laurie Maguire, of "30 Great Myths About Shakespeare." From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published April 22, 2015. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. Edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. With help from Nick Moorbath at Evolution Recording Studios in Oxford and Jonathan Cherry at public radio station WAMU.

Her father loved me, oft invited me, Still questioned me the story of my life From year to year—the battles, sieges, fortunes That I have passed. —Othello (1.3.149–152) What do we know about Shakespeare's life? The answer: Not as much as we would like to. As much or as little, in other words, as we would about any middle-class Englishman of his time. This episode of Shakespeare Unlimited considers not only that question, but two others: During the past four centuries, when and how did biographers learn about Shakespeare's life? And does knowing about any writer's biography, including Shakespeare's, make any difference in responding to their work? To tackle those big, and intriguing, questions, Rebecca Sheir talks with Brian Cummings, Anniversary Professor of English at the University of York. Cummings delivered the 2014 Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture on "Shakespeare, Biography, and Anti-Biography" at the Folger Shakespeare Library; the lecture also opened the Folger Institute's NEH-funded collaborative research conference, "Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography," which Cummings co-organized. ----------------------------------- From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. Edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. With help from Lisa Burch and Chris Robins at the University of York.

"Our own voices with our own tongues" —CORIOLANUS (2.3.47) In one of two podcasts on Shakespeare and the African American experience, "Our Own Voices with Our Own Tongues" revisits the era when Jim Crow segregation was at its height, from a few years after the end of the Civil War to the 1940s and 1950s. Rebecca Sheir, host of the Shakespeare Unlimited series, talks about black Americans and Shakespeare in that time with two scholars of the period, Marvin MacAllister and Ayanna Thompson. The discussion ranges from landmark performances—Orson Welles's Depression-era all-black MACBETH and Paul Robeson's Othello— to powerful, though less familiar, stories from the Folger's hometown of Washington, DC. It also draws in later questions about African Americans and Shakespeare, including the role of race in casting choices to this day. Marvin MacAllister is an associate professor of African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. Ayanna Thompson is a professor of English at George Washington University and a trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America. ----------------- From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. Edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We also had help from Dr. James Hatch, co-author with the late Errol Hill of "A History of African American Theatre"; Connie Winston; Anthony Hill and Douglas Barnett, co-authors of "The Historical Dictionary of African American Theater"; and Jobie Sprinkle and Tena Simmons at radio station WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina.