That Shakespeare Life

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Episode 34: Shakespeare and the Legend of Robin Hood with Kathryn Roberts Parker Dec 10, 2018

Show notes

Mentioned by name in three of Shakespeare's plays, the legend of Robin Hood played a big role in the life of most dramatists in early modern England, being a prominent figure in English folklore, his legend was a popular source of good dramatic material on stage.

For William Shakespeare, Robin Hood had some very specific touch points, not only was he mentioned by names, but numerous volumes of Shakespeare's contemporaries were writing and staging plays about Robin Hood, and Queen Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, famously had himself and his court to dress up as Robin Hood and his merry men for a celebration. There were songs and ballads about Robin Hood being sung in Shakespeare's lifetime, and during the Gunpowder Plot, Robert Cecil even called Guy Fawkes and his associates "Robin Hoods" in 1605. With the current reputation of Robin Hood as a good folk hero, contrasted with the bad reputation Robert Cecil obviously had of him, I wondered exactly what we as a 21st century audience need to know about 17th century associations with Robin Hood when we encounter the mentions and references to this popular folktale in Shakespeare's plays.

To help us sort out this mystery and learn more about Shakespeare's Robin Hood, is our guest Kathryn Roberts Parker.

Episode 33: Music in Shakespeare's Plays with Mary Springfels Dec 03, 2018

Show notes

Not many of us think of Shakespeare's plays as examples of great musicals, but from A Midsummer Night's Dream, to even Macbeth, Shakespeare uses music, song, and instrumental accompaniment as a dramatic device that spurs forward the story of the play, and quite often, even comments on the actions of the players themselves with songs, dances, and even musical flourishes to introduce or follow the exit of characters in the play.

Here today to help us explore the music of William Shakespeare's stage productions, is our special guest, Mary Springfels.

Mary Springfels is the founder and former director of the Newberry Consort. A veteran of the early music movement in America, she has performed and recorded extensively with such ensembles as the New York Pro Musica, the Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, Sequentia, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, Musica Sacra, the Marlborough Festival, the New York City Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater, where she served as an artistic advisor. She is much in demand as a teacher and player in summer festivals throughout the US, among them the San Francisco and Amherst early music festivals, the Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society of America, the Pinewoods Early Music Week, and the Texas Toot. She has recently performed with the Sonoma Bach Festival, the Arizona Bach Festival, the Dallas Bach Festival, and Ars Lyrica of Houston.Mary joins us today to discuss her article for the Encyclopedia Britannica titled Music in Shakespeare's Plays that discusses the history of Tudor music and Shakespeare's application of that culture to performance.

Episode 32: Costuming Shakespeare with Patricia Lennox Nov 26, 2018

Show notes

If we took a photograph of every single King Lear ever staged, they would likely all be wearing a different costume. When it comes to Shakespeare's stage directions, he's of very little help to production companies because rarely, if at all, are the costumes of a particular play detailed out anywhere by Shakespeare himself. Of course his characters wore costumes, and used props, but exactly what were they?

Here this week to help us understand the role of costumes for William Shakespeare is our guest, Patricia Lennox.

Patricia Lennox teaches at the Gallatin School of New York University and has been a Global Lecturer at New York University sites in London and Florence, Italy. She edited As You Like It for New Kittredge Shakespeare Series. Her articles are included in multiple books about William Shakespeare, including the one she co-edited, which we've invited her to talk with us about today titled "Shakespeare and Costume", which came out in 2015. Patricia's article in that collection focuses on the character of Juliet's Nurse and how costume helped that character develop her iconic personality. Today, Patricia will be taking us behind the curtain to look into the wardrobe department for William Shakespeare's theaters and explore how the bard handled costuming in the 16th century.

Episode 31: Shakespeare Eating Turkey with Guest Malene Lauritsen Nov 19, 2018

Show notes

One of the most iconic holiday images in the Western World is that of a grand family table set for a crowd, packed with goodies and right at the center is a stuffed turkey glistening and ready for dinner. What you might not expect from this image is that the turkey's arrival on the holiday table has a long history in transatlantic exploration and international trade with Native Americans which dates to the late 16th century and makes William Shakespeare one of the first Englishmen to eat turkey at Christmas dinner.

For William Shakespeare, a turkey at Christmas dinner became a widely popular occurrence in England by the 1570s when young William was around 6 years old. The bard mentions turkeys in his plays only 4 times, and references another term for turkeys, guinea hen, only once. Despite the sparse textual references in Shakespeare's works, turkeys play an interesting role in the life of William Shakespeare and here to share with us some of the bird's fascinating history is a guest who knows first hand what it's like to study England's first turkeys because she was part of the team who discovered them. Malene Lauritsen is a PhD researcher at the University of Exeter working in zooarchealogy. Back in 1983, The University of Exeter uncovered a bunch of artifacts that included some turkey bones. Those bones were left buried in a box unexplored until Malene, under the direction of Alan Outram, decided to look deeper. Malene is here this week to be our guide to exploring their historic find and to share with us exactly what they uncovered, and what those discoveries cna tell us about the history of William Shakespeare

Episode 30: Malcolm Hebron Introduces to Shakespeare's Renaissance Magus Nov 12, 2018

Show notes

The character of Prospero in The Tempest is full of magic, superstition, and the question for the audience about whether Prospero is a good man or a selfish and greedy villain. Then of course, we have to ask, was he even a real man at all, or something supernatural?

When The Tempest was first staged, it was done so before King James I at a celebration for All Hallow's Day in 1611. As King James was highly suspicious of all things magic and supernatural, it's impressive that Shakespeare managed to get away with portraying such a highly complicated wizard of magic like Prospero, particularly when you consider that King James had, only two years before The Tempest, put Elizabeth I's popular Magus (and one potential source for Shakespeare), John Dee, on trial for suspicion of witchcraft. In this week's episode, Malcolm Hebron is our guest today to help us unravel the strands of history from fiction as we explore the real life Renaissance figure often seen at English royal courts, the Magus, and how this contemporary wizard-like figure from the real life of William Shakespeare may have influenced the character of Prospero, and that character's reception on stage, when Shakespeare was writing, and performing his play The Tempest.

Episode 29: The Science of Shakespeare with Dan Falk Nov 05, 2018

Show notes

William Shakespeare's life overlapped some of the most extraordinary scientific discoveries in human history. Modern thought was developing the idea of a round Earth, the sun being the center of the universe, and scientific minds like Galileo, Thomas Digges, and Tycho Brahe, were utilizing then cutting edge technology like the telescope to transform the way we thought about the universe and our place in it. This swirl of scientific thought, imagination, and theory was buzzing around William Shakespeare right at the same time he was penning some of the plays so famous for asking many of the same human questions scientists were raising about the universe, and in the case of Thomas Digges, these questions were being raised literally right down the street from William Shakespeare himself as Digges lived in Shakespeare's own neighborhood.

Here to help us unpack some of the realities about scientific thought in the 16th century, and what an understanding of that culture can help us learn about William Shakespeare, is the man who literally wrote the book on The Science of Shakespeare, our special guest Dan Falk.

Dan Falk is an award winning freelance writer and broadcaster specializing in science stories He was the 2011/12 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. His has written numerous publications for Smithsonian, New Scientist, Scientific American, the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Quanta, Nautilus, NBCnews.com, Mental Floss, and many other newspapers, magazines, and websites. In addition to being an accomplished science writer, Dan is also a successful science radio broadcaster, having written and produced dozens of radio documentaries, primarily for the CBC Radio program Ideas. Several of these documentaries have won prestigious international awards. He is the co-host a podcast called BookLab with science journalist Amanda Gefter. The podcast reviews the latest in popular science books.

Dan he joins us today to discuss his most recent book, The Science of Shakespeare, which was published in April 2014 by St. Martin's Press in the U.S. and by Goose Lane in Canada. His book explores the time period of Shakespeare's life and specifically massive upheaval of scientific thought that was happening in the very same neighborhood where Shakespeare lived and worked. We are delighted to have Dan here with us today to take us behind the curtain and into the science life of William Shakespeare.

Episode 28: Exploring 16th Century Witches and Witchcraft with Marion Gibson Oct 29, 2018

Show notes

Halloween is coming up a few days from now, and it seems like a good opportunity to explore the origins to the holiday, which began as a religious celebration. Of course, since then it's grown into a fun night of candy and costumes for us here in the US, but for William Shakespeare, ghouls, ghosts, and witches had real life implications.

While king of Scotland, James VI became convinced witchcraft was an active danger to him personally, and in order to prevent that danger, he conducted witch trials that began in 1591. James was convinced that a coven of powerful witches was conspiring to murder him through magic, and that they were in league with the Devil. In 1597, after the Scotland witch trials concluded, James published his study of witchcraft, called Demonology. When he then became king of England in 1603, that book was published in London. James I's fascination with witches was so well known that many historians believe Shakespeare composed Macbeth just two years later, and included the famous three witch sisters, specifically for James I.

To help us understand this part of Shakespeare's life and exactly what the state of witchcraft was in Shakespeare's life, as well as the influence of this part of society on the plays we have from Shakespeare, we welcome Marion Gibson as our guest today.

Episode 27: The History of Shakespeare's Beard with Christopher Oldstone-Moore Oct 22, 2018

Show notes

From the Chandos portrait to first folio engraving, all of our visual depictions of William Shakespeare show him with a full face beard. Was this grooming style typical for Elizabethans or was William Shakespeare stepping outside the norm with his choice of facial hair? We think of Shakespeare as a hipster artist guy today, but what did the Elizabethans think about Shakespeare's Beard?

Episode 26: Tiffany Stern Talks 16th Century Quill Pens and Graphite Pencils Oct 15, 2018

Show notes

When we think about William Shakespeare, we almost synonymously think of him holding a quill pen, or furiously scratching away on a piece of parchment with ink on his hands creating a masterpiece. When it comes to the history of writing, pens in particular, and even references to writing that happens inside Shakespeare's plays, the world of writing instruments in Shakespeare's lifetime was really widely varied. Not only were there other options beyond the infamous quill pen, but it's highly likely many of Shakespeare's plays were actually taken down using a precursor to the same No. 2 pencils many of us create our artwork with today. Here to help us explore the history of writing instruments in England, including table books, graphite pencils, and a delightful look at Elizabethan erasers, is professor of Shakespeare and early modern drama, Tiffany Stern.

Episode #25: Sally Beth MacLean Talks With Us About Shakespeare & 16th Century English Travelling Playing Companies Oct 08, 2018

Show notes

Between 1590 and 1642, there were about twenty companies of actors in London and only 4-5 of them played in London proper at one time. In addition to these companies, there were more than a hundred provincial troupes. The fact that there were many more provincial troupes than city-playing companies demonstrates that for William Shakespeare's lifetime, it was actually the purpose built theater which was new and different, while travelling companies were the traditional way to tell stories through performance.

Here this week to help us understand a bit more about travelling theater companies is our guest, Sally-Beth Maclean. Sally-Beth is the REED Director of Research and General Editor of the Records of Early English Drama series at the University of Toronto. Her research project specifically into Early Modern Theaters started in 2011 focusing on 8 theatres north of the Thames and is currently exploring six theatres south of the Thames, which include Shakespeare's Globe and the Rose.

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