That Shakespeare Life

Latest Episodes:

Episode #14: Interview with Douglas Bruster about how Shakespeare promoted his plays in the 16th century Jul 23, 2018

Show notes

Douglas joins us today to discuss marketing in the 16th century. With new plays performed as often as every afternoon, and a large portion of his target audience being illiterate, how did Shakespeare fill seats and manage to sell enough tickets to stay in business? Douglas Bruster is a professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. His research centers on Shakespeare, drama, and literary history. His discoveries have been featured in such venues as The New York Times and National Public Radio. Douglas has written extensively on Shakespeare, publishing six books on Shakespeare and early modern drama including Drama and the Market in the Age of Shakespeare, as well as Shakespeare and the Power of Performance. He is editor of Thomas Middleton's The Changeling, the morality plays Everyman and Mankind, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In addition to the University of Texas, he has taught at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Paris.

In this episode, I'll be asking Douglas about :

The flags above The Globe and their meaning
Getting the word out about plays when your population can't read
How did Shakespeare tell people what plays would be performed?
...and more.

Episode #13: Interview with Barbara Traister exploring astrology, doctors, herbs, and witches in Shakespeare's England Jul 16, 2018

Show notes

Barbara Traister is the author of The Notorious Astrological Physician of London, and Heavenly Necromancers: The Magician in English Renaissance Drama, as well as former Professor of English at Lehigh University. She joins us today to look at some of Shakespeare's examples of medicine depicted in his plays and explore where Shakespeare got it right, and some of the hidden messages we can discover in the text by understanding the realities of astrology and 17th century medicine.

In this episode, I'll be asking Barbara about :

What kinds of doctors existed in the 16th and 17th century?
What role did astrology play in time keeping and individuals knowing how often to take their medicine?
Why were people accepting, even respectful and trusting of doctors who mixed herbal medicine, but suspicious of witches by accusing them of mixing potions?
What was the relationship between the 4 humors and the more bizarre practices of medicine like bloodletting?

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Episode #012: Interview With Glyn Jones, Head of Gardens at Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: Did Shakespeare Have a Garden? Jul 09, 2018

Show notes

Glyn Jones joins us today to talk about kitchen gardens and estate gardens that impacted Shakespeare. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust maintains 5 gardens thought to have been part of William Shakespeare's home in Stratford and today Glyn Jones is going to help us explore whether or not Shakespeare had a garden himself, what purpose a garden might have served a playwright, and what sort of things would have been planted there. In this episode, I ask Glyn about: - Why would a playwright own a garden? - Is a garden and a backyard the same thing? - Would Shakespeare have had a kitchen garden? - What about those tobacco pipes found on the grounds there? We will also discuss Shakespeare's son-in-law, John Hall, the medical doctor, and the importance of herbs in medicine that lead to a medical garden on the grounds at SBT. Mr. Jones will even share with you the best spot to walk at the gardens themselves if you want to stand where Shakespeare himself actually stood.

Episode #011: Literature Versus Theater | An Interview About Shakespeare with Nigel Wood Jul 02, 2018

Show notes

Does William Shakespeare belong in the theater and not the literature department? Nigel Wood is a Professor of Literature at Loughborough University, specializing in early modern literature and the staging of dramatic texts. He joins us today to discuss the evolution of Shakespeare's plays as a result of reading what was intended to be performed. I will be asking Nigel about the significance of stage directions in addition to the written dialogue, and what impact Condell and Heminges' publication of the First Folio might have had on the course of Shakespeare's enduring legacy thereafter. Are we doing Shakespeare a disservice to study his works as literature? You'll learn: >> Does Shakespeare belong in literature or are we mistakenly placing him there? >> What about original practice techniques? Does that help us get closer to real Shakespeare? >> Turns out early modern theaters had a playbill. Find out what it contained and how it was used >> How does the stage itself impact the performance? Are the stage directions we can read designed for a specific space? >> We talk Cymbeline, Titus Andronicus, Oedipus, and more!

Episode #010: Interview with Hazel Forsyth about finding Shakespearean Shoes at The Rose Theater Jun 25, 2018

Show notes

Hazel Forsyth, Senior Curator of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Collections at the Museum of London, joins us today to discuss a 2009 archeological find done by the Museum of London where they discovered, among other evidence of theater life in the 17th century, a set of period shoes near the site of the old Rose Theater, dating to within Shakespeare's lifetime. While the shoes themselves have now been moved into the archives at the Museum of London, at the time they were displayed they were part of a small collection of shoes and artifacts like hazelnuts which were possibly worn by Shakespearean actors at The Rose, and the hazelnut shells have their own theater connection as well. The remarkable find is allowing archaeologists and historians to piece together some of the history of Shakespeare's time period.

Episode 009: Grace Tiffany shares with us the inside life of Shakespeare's Second Daughter, Judith Quiney Jun 18, 2018

Show notes

Grace Tiffany is a successful novelist, author, and professor of Shakespeare at Western Michigan University. Her first novel, My Father Had a Daughter, was published in 2003, and is a fictional tale about the life of Shakespeare's second daughter Judith. While fictional, the book brings the historical facts about Judith Quiney to life on the pages of her book. Since her debut novel, Grace has completed 6 historical novels set in the Renaissance or Middle Ages and her work focuses primarily on Shakespeare. Her latest book, Gunpowder Percy, builds on the historical facts surrounding the 1605 Gunpowder Plot when Shakespeare was 41 years old. In addition to her novels, Grace has received numerous research and teaching awards for her creativity in the field of Shakespeare Studies. She has written numerous scholarly articles and monographs on Renaissance history and culture, with her work appearing in Shakespeare Studies, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, and The Renaissance Quarterly, among others. James Shapiro has called Grace's book The Turquoise Ring, one of the six best creative adaptations of Shakespeare in history. Today, Grace is joining us to discuss the subject of her first novel, Judith Quiney, and take us inside the life of Shakespeare's second daughter.

Episode 008: Interview with Ben Crystal about Original Practice Shakespeare Jun 11, 2018

Show notes

Today's guest knows better than most that when you study Shakespeare, you almost synonymously study 17th century theater. Ben Crystal is an actor, writer, producer, adventurer & explorer of original practices in Shakespeare, and was the Artistic Director at Passion in Practice, an original practice based theatre company specializing in performances that rework the speech, rehearsal techniques, and performance methods of Shakespeare's theatre. He joins us today to discuss original practice, and what the real role of understanding Shakespeare's perspective on theater does, and should, have on our modern performances today. PLUS: he tells us honestly that he, too, was one of those students who hated Shakespeare until the stage opened up a new perspective for him.

In this episode, I'll be asking Ben about:

What Shakespeare's theater would have been like when he was performing his own plays
If his plays were performed using these conventions originally, why do you think we lost touch with that format somewhere along the way?
What is a cue script? Why did Shakespeare use them?
Since Ben pays close attention to the silent stage directions when producing plays in original practice, I also ask him to settle a mystery and share with us: How does George Plantagenet REALLY die in Richard III?

Episode 007: Interview with David Bevington on the state of Catholic vs Protestant in England during Shakespeare's lifetime Jun 04, 2018

Show notes

Called "One of the most learned and devoted of Shakespeareans," by Harold Bloom, Dr. David Bevington is an American literary scholar who specializes in British drama of the Renaissance, and has edited and introduced the complete works of William Shakespeare in both the 29-volume, Bantam Classics paperback editions and the single-volume Longman edition. Dr. Bevington remains the only living scholar to have personally edited Shakespeare's complete corpus." He will be talking with us about Religion in the 16th Century. I will be asking him to offer a brief explanation of the state of Catholic vs Protestant in England during Shakespeare's lifetime, as well as what, if any, impact this climate had on the life and work of William Shakespeare himself.

Episode 006: Interview with author Pauline Montagna about the life of Edward Alleyn, rival actor in Elizabethan England May 28, 2018

Show notes

In this week's episode, we talk with Pauline Montagna about the focus of an entire chapter in her latest book, Not Wisely But Too Well which makes the claim that Edward Alleyn, and not Shakespeare, was the upstart crow insulted famously by Robert Greene. Alleyn was a rival actr competing in the 16th century with Richard Burbage, Shakespeare's lead performer. Pauline joins us today to unpack her research into this controversial idea and share her argument in favor of Edward Alleyn. In this week's episode, I'll ask Pauline about: - who was Edward Alleyn? - Why was he Burbage's rival? Did they fight? - What makes you think he might have been the upstart crow? and more. Join us inside as we explore one of Shakespeare's acting contemporaries, Edward Alleyn.

Episode 005: Interview with Dr. Paul Menzer, about the role of witches, magic, and superstition in Shakespeare May 21, 2018

Show notes

Whenever Shakespeare's plays are performed, there are always legends and stories which come up right along with them. We have Macbeth and the Scottish Play, as well as Romeo and Juliet and the famous misconstrued couplet in the final scene. Over the years, some of these stories have grown into famous anecdotes that no one is really sure where they started. No one, at least, except Paul Menzer. This week at That Shakespeare Life, we are going to sit down with Paul Menzer, professor at Mary Baldwin University, to talk about the truth behind the legends connecting to Shakespeare's plays, Dr. Menzer is an expert on this particular topic because he literally wrote the book called Anecdotal Shakespeare. In this episode, I'll be asking Dr. Menzer about : >>Macbeth and why The Scottish Play became such an important theater legend. >>We'll talk about Cymbeline and why smaller plays lack such strong anecdotes, and >>you'll hear a story about Richard Burbage which has spanned the centuries attaching itself to actors playing Richard III for centuries.

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