Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Stephen Marche on How Shakespeare Changed Everything Feb 15, 2022

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Even 400 years after his death, William Shakespeare’s influence is profound. But is it right to say that he changed everything? That the assertion Stephen Marche makes in his book "How Shakespeare Changed Everything." In the book, Marche catalogs Shakespeare’s influence on (among other things) sex, language, psychology, and starlings. He talks with Barbara Bogaev about those legacies and more. Stephen Marche is a novelist, essayist, and cultural commentator. His book "How Shakespeare Changed Everything" was originally published by Harper Collins in 2011. His newest book, "The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future," has just been published by Simon & Schuster. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published February 15, 2022. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Influence Is Thine,” 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 Jenna McClennan at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Black Women Shakespeareans, 1821 – 1960, with Joyce Green MacDonald Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

Between 1821 and 1960, it would have been vanishingly rare to see a Black woman onstage performing Shakespeare. In Dr. Joyce Green MacDonald’s chapter in the new Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race, “Actresses of Color and Shakespearean Performance,” she digs deep into the history of American professional theater in the United States to find records of every Black woman who has been paid to perform or recite Shakespeare on stage in the United States. Barbara Bogaev talks with MacDonald about four performers who took to the stage in those 139 years: The African Grove Theatre’s “Miss Welsh,” Henrietta Vinton Davis, Adrienne McNeil Herndon, and Jane White. Dr. Joyce Green MacDonald is an Associate Professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky and a trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America. In 2011, she participated in the Folger Institute conference “An Anglo-American History of the KJV.” MacDonald’s new book, Shakespearean Adaptation, Race, and Memory in the New World, has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan. Her chapter “Actresses of Color and Shakespearean Performance: The Question of Reception” appears in the new Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race, published by Cambridge University Press. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published February 1, 2022. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, ““Between You and the Women the Play May Please,” 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 Nick Stevens and Caleb Songer at Downtown Recording in Louisville, Kentucky.

Cutting Plays for Performance, with Aili Huber Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

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.

J.R. Thorp on Learwife Jan 04, 2022

Show notes

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.

Lena Cowen Orlin on The Private Life of William Shakespeare Dec 21, 2021

Show notes

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 (Rebroadcast) Dec 07, 2021

Show notes

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.

Holidays in Shakespeare's England, with Erika T. Lin Nov 24, 2021

Show notes

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.

Bringing Latinx Voices to Shakespeare, with Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa Nov 09, 2021

Show notes

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.

Shakespeare's Language and Race, with Patricia Akhimie and Carol Mejia LaPerle Oct 26, 2021

Show notes

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.

Shakespeare in Latinx Communities, with José Cruz González and David Lozano Oct 12, 2021

Show notes

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.

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