Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

It might surprise you to learn that just about every production of a Shakespeare play that you’ve ever seen onstage has been cut, from student shows to Broadway revivals. Cutting Plays for Performance: A Practical and Accessible Guide, a new book by Aili Huber and Dr. Toby Malone, lays out some of the reasons that theater-makers cut Shakespeare’s plays, and suggests some handy questions directors and dramaturgs should ask themselves as they take a pen to the plays. Barbara Bogaev interviews Huber about the argument that brought Huber and her co-author together, strategies for cutting plays, and how a good cut can reveal a new and exciting story. Aili Huber has been a theater director for over 20 years. She holds an MFA in directing from Mary Baldwin University and the American Shakespeare Center. Her new book, co-written with Dr. Toby Malone of SUNY-Oswego, is called Cutting Plays for Performance: A Practical and Accessible Guide. It was published by Routledge in December 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published January 18, 2022. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Your Way Is Shorter,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Mikael Glago at Midnight Spaghetti Productions in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

A banished queen receives word that her husband and three daughters are dead. Learwife, a new novel by J.R. Thorp, picks up where Shakespeare’s King Lear leaves off: The queen is Berte, Lear’s wife and Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia’s mother, and she has been exiled in an abbey for the past fifteen years. Now, newly informed of her family members’ deaths, she remembers her life with them and tries to plot her way forward. Thorp talks with Barbara Bogaev about her inspirations (including Eleanor of Aquitaine, The English Patient, and a stray line from an Agatha Christie novel), her new backstories for Lear’s characters, and the roles of grief and nothingness in the book. J.R. Thorp is a librettist and writer working across a variety of forms, primarily with composers, choirs, orchestras, and musical organizations. Learwife is her first novel. It was published in the US by Pegasus Books in December 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published January 4, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “All Her Mother's Pains and Benefits,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a trascript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Duncan O'Cleirigh at Blackwater Studios in Cork, Ireland.

Dr. Lena Cowen Orlin’s new book, The Private Life of Shakespeare, isn’t exactly a biography. Rather, it’s an exhaustive return to the primary sources that document Shakespeare’s life, a book that scholar James Shapiro says “demolishes shoddy claims and biased inferences that have distorted our understanding of Shakespeare’s life.” Orlin focuses on five much-talked-about elements of Shakespeare’s life, and then lays out fact after fact after fact about them drawn from her assiduous research. We talk with her about a few of those elements, including Shakespeare’s relationship with Anne Shakespeare, how he escaped an apprenticeship and career in Stratford-upon-Avon, and his funerary monument in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church. Orlin is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Dr. Lena Cowen Orlin is an Emerita Professor of English at Georgetown University. From 1982 to 1996, Orlin coordinated postdoctoral seminars and conferences as Executive Director of the Folger Institute. In 2011 and 2012, she researched at the Folger as one of our Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellows. Her new book, The Private Life of William Shakespeare, was published by Oxford University Press in November of 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published December 7, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I See a Man’s Life,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Lauren Schild and John Rigatuso at Clean Cuts studios in Washington, DC.

Sir Antony Sher, one the greatest Shakespearean actors of the 20th and 21st centuries, died in December, 2021, in Stratford Upon Avon. He was 72. In 2018, we were lucky enough to record an interview with Sir Antony and, to honor his life and work, we’re bringing it to you again. What does it take to be a great Shakespearean? For Sher, the answer was preparation. On this podcast episode, Sher talks about his experiences with the Royal Shakespeare Company and his roles as Lear in 2016, Falstaff in 2014, and Richard III in 1984. In preparing for these roles, Sher kept meticulous diaries, which he later published as books. There was 'Year of the King' for Richard and 'Year of the Fat Knight' for Falstaff. Then, there was 'Year of the Mad King,' published by Nick Hern books in 2018, which chronicles his doubts, his fears, his marriage proposal, his illnesses, and all of the life and death that swirled around him as he prepared for the most grueling role Shakespeare ever wrote for an older actor: King Lear. Sher is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "Go Get It Ready," was originally published April 3, 2018 and was rebroadcast December 7, 2021. It was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Esther French and Ben Lauer are the web producers. We had help from Armani Ur-Rub and Philippa Harland at the Royal Shakespeare Company and Jon Barton at Nick Hern Books. We had technical help from Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Dan Stirling and Cathy Devlin at The Sound Company in London.

Many of us have holiday traditions: we trim trees, spin dreidels, trick-or-treat, set off fireworks, and host parties. People had holiday traditions in Shakespeare’s time too: they crossdressed, roleplayed, acted in amateur theatricals, fought, ate pancakes, and watched cockfights. If you’re thinking some of those holiday traditions sound familiar from Shakespeare’s plays… well, you’re right. Dr. Erika T. Lin studies holidays in early modern England. Some of them, like Christmas and Easter, are still big dates on today’s calendars, while others, like Martlemas, Shrovetide, Midsummer, or The May, are less familiar. Lin talks with Barbara Bogaev about how people celebrated and how they might have felt about Shakespeare’s plays in a period when the line between holiday festivity and theater wasn’t quite so clear. Dr. Erika T. Lin is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance at CUNY Graduate Center in New York. You can find her writing on Elizabethan festivals and holidays in a couple of places. Her article “Popular Festivity and the Early Modern Stage: The Case of George a Greene,” appeared in Theatre Journal in 2009. Her chapter entitled “Festivity” appeared in the 2013 book Early Modern Theatricality, edited by Henry S. Turner and published by Oxford University Press. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published November 23, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Revels, Dances, Masques, and Merry Hours,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Josh Wilcox at Brooklyn Podcasting Studio.

Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa both grew up speaking English and Spanish, and they share memories of being made to feel like their voices, dialects, and identities weren’t “good enough” for Shakespeare. Now, both DeCure and Espinosa are vocal coaches and actors. They share an example of how an actor might embody their text, praise on the late great Raul Julia, and explain how important it is for actors to bring their 'voces culturales' to Shakespeare’s words. Cynthia Santos DeCure is an Assistant Professor of Acting at the Yale School of Drama. She was most recently the dialect coach for El Huracán at Yale Rep, and she was an on-set dialect coach for Orange is the New Black on Netflix. Micha Espinosa is a Professor in the School of Music, Dance, and Theatre at Arizona State University. She was the Voice and Text Director for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s world premiere production of La Comedia of Errors, a bilingual adaptation of Shakespeare’s original play from the Play on! translation by Christina Anderson. DeCure and Espinosa wrote about vocal coaching in chapters in Shakespeare and Latinidad, a collection of essays in the field of Latinx theater, edited by Carla Della Gatta and Trevor Boffone and published by Edinburgh University Press in June 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published November 9, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Any Accent Breaking From Thy Tongue,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, Josh Leal at Sun Studios of Arizona in Tempe, and Ryan McEvoy at the Yale University Broadcast Studio.

Close reading of Shakespeare is not a new concept. But this kind of close reading is more challenging—and it can help us interpret Shakespeare’s words in new and profound ways. Our guests are two contributors to the new Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race: Dr. Patricia Akhimie, who wrote a chapter on race in the comedies, and Dr. Carol Mejia LaPerle, who wrote a chapter on race in the tragedies. Together, they explore the ways that Shakespeare’s language—think descriptors like “fair,” “sooty,” or “alabaster”—constructs and enshrines systems of race and racism. Akhmie and LaPerle are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Dr. Patricia Akhimie is an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. She is a 2021 - 22 Research Fellow at the Folger. Dr. Carol Mejia LaPerle is Professor and Honors Advisor for the Department of English at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. She has participated in numerous Folger Institute scholarly programs and was a speaker at the 2019 Race and Periodization Conference. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race was published by Cambridge University Press and became available in the US in February 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 26, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “A Whole Theater of Others,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Theater artists José Cruz González and David Lozano join us in this episode. Their conversation “On Making Shakespeare Relevant to Latinx Communities” appears in the new book Shakespeare and Latinidad. González and Lozano talk with Barbara Bogaev about adapting and translating Shakespeare, performing and directing it in ways that make it relevant to Latinx audiences, and whether the Bard has a place at theater companies working to carve out a space for Latinx voices. José Cruz González received the NEA Directing Fellowship in 1985 and the 2010 Kennedy Center National Teaching Artist Grant. His plays include American Mariachi, Sunsets & Margaritas, and The Astronaut Farmworker. He’s also a professor of Theatre Arts at Cal State Los Angeles. David Lozano is Executive Artistic Director of Cara Mía Theatre in Dallas. In 2014, he was recognized by The Dallas Observer as one of six “Masterminds of Arts & Culture.” He co-wrote and directed Deferred Action and Crystal City 1969, which was named the “Best New Play of 2009” by The Dallas Morning News. Their chapter on “On Making Shakespeare Relevant to Latinx Communities” appears in Shakespeare and Latinidad, a collection of essays in the field of Latinx theatre, edited by Carla Della Gatta and Trevor Boffone. Shakespeare and Latinidad was published by Edinburgh University Press in June 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 12, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I Understand Thee and Can Speak Thy Tongue,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help on this episode from Andrew Feliciano & Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Todd Cotham and Aaron Carpenter at fifty50studios in Dallas.

Shakespeare wrote a lot about English kings and queens. Over the last three hundred years, a lot of English kings and queens have gotten really into Shakespeare. Our guest Gordon McMullan is the Principal Investigator of Making History: Shakespeare and the Royal Family, a new online exhibition that examines the long relationship between Shakespeare and the British royal family. That includes queens pretending to love Shakespeare as much as they thought Elizabeth I did, princes patterning themselves after Hal, and kings writing melancholy marginalia in copies of The Complete Works. McMullan is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Gordon McMullan is a Professor of English and Director of the London Shakespeare Centre at King's College London. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 28, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Say, What Art Thou That Talk'st of Kings and Queens?” was was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, all available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

In Mike Lew's play "Teenage Dick," Richard, a high-school senior with cerebral palsy, is determined to become class president by any means necessary. Commissioned by theater artist Gregg Mozgala and The Apothetae, the company Mogzala started to explore the disabled experience, Lew's comedy drops Shakespeare's "Richard III" in a modern American high school. Barbara Bogaev interview Lew about about the play’s origins, tropes around disability, and how his story reframes Richard's motivations. Teenage Dick will be onstage three times this fall and winter, in a production directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel: at Washington, DC's Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company September 22 – October 17, at Boston's Huntington Theater December 3 – January 9, and at California's Pasadena Playhouse February 1 – February 27. Mike Lew is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, The Mellon Foundation Playwright-in-Residence at Ma-Yi Theater in New York, and the former La Jolla Playhouse Artist-in-Residence. His plays include Tiger Style!, Bike America, microcrisis, and the book to the musical Bhangin’ It. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 14, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Plots Have I Laid, Inductions Dangerous,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Evan Marquart and Susan Palyo at VoiceTrax West in Studio City, California. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts.