Best FolgerShakespeareLibrary Podcasts (2023)

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Patrick Page on King Lear and Shakespeare's Villains 40:41

2h ago40:41

40:41

You might recognize Patrick Page from films like Spirited, or shows like The Gilded Age, or from his Broadway roles as Hades in Hadestown for which he was nominated for a Tony. But Page is also an accomplished Shakespearean, with a long relationship with Washington, DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he’s played Prospero, Macbeth, Coriolanus, …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Artificial Intelligence Goes to English Class, with Jennifer Black, John Ladd, and Laura Turchi 37:07

9d ago37:07

37:07

The Folger: Hey ChatGPT! Could you write a six line Shakespearean monologue in iambic pentameter about an interview with Jennifer Black, Laura Turchi, and John Ladd about the challenges and opportunities that ChatGPT presents in the English classroom? Thank you!ChatGPT: Of course, I'd be happy to write a Shakespearean monologue on that topic! Here …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Lucy Wooding on Tudor England: A History 32:04

1M ago32:04

32:04

We can’t seem to get enough of the Tudor dynasty and its soap-opera twists. But in her book Tudor England: A History, Lucy Wooding argues that to really know the Tudors you must look past the famous names and racy plotlines. While Wooding visits the period’s kings and queens—was Henry VIII the lusty man we imagine? How “bloody” was Mary? What about…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Debra Ann Byrd on Becoming Othello: A Black Girl's Journey 35:12

2M ago35:12

35:12

Theater-maker Debra Ann Byrd has played Othello in three different productions: first, in a staged reading in 2013, then again in 2015 and 2019. Each time, she learned a little bit more about Othello, and about herself. In her one-woman show Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey, Byrd recounts her experience discovering herself while playing Sha…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Ian Smith on Black Shakespeare 39:51

2M ago39:51

39:51

In his new book, Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race, Dr. Ian Smith of Lafayette College argues that Shakespeare’s plays engage with questions of race and early modern encounters between Africans and Europeans in ways that the discipline of Shakespeare studies have been hesitant to acknowledge. Ian Smith returns to the podcast and talks …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Talene Monahon on Her New Revenge Comedy, Jane Anger 34:30

3M ago34:30

34:30

In Talene Monahon’s new play Jane Anger, a narcissistic William Shakespeare is wrestling with writers’ block while working on King Lear. When Will’s former flame Jane Anger shows up, he knows she can help him finish the play. But Jane wants something in return. She needs Will’s help to publish a pamphlet she’s written that calls out sexist male pla…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Fiona Ritchie on Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble 33:51

3M ago33:51

33:51

You may not have heard of Sarah Siddons, but if you’ve seen a production of Macbeth recently, you may have experienced her influence.In the late 18th century, Siddons became one of the first celebrity actors, for her performances in roles including Queen Katherine in Henry VIII, Constance in King John, Volumnia in Coriolanus, and, of course, Lady M…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Billy Collins on Writing Short Poems and Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets 34:49

4M ago34:49

34:49

Billy Collins is one of America’s most well-known poets. He served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003. His poetry collections frequently show up on bestseller lists, and his popular readings—three of which we’ve been lucky to host at the Folger—are warm and laughter-filled affairs.In a wide-ranging interview, Collins talks about humanizing Sha…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Adrian Noble on How to Direct Shakespeare 28:31

4M ago28:31

28:31

A director makes a play add up to more than the sum of its parts. That's something Adrian Noble knows as well as anyone. Noble has directed numerous productions of Shakespeare’s plays, including Kenneth Branagh’s breakout performance as Henry V in 1984 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He served as artistic director of the RSC from 1991 to 2002, an…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Ian McKellen on Richard III, Macbeth, and Gandalf 32:00

5M ago32:00

32:00

In the second part of our special extended interview with Sir Ian McKellen, he tells us about some of his most famous roles: playing Macbeth opposite Dame Judi Dench, King Richard III with a screenplay he co-wrote, and Gandalf the Grey in The Lord of the Rings films. McKellen is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Ian McKellen on Playing Hamlet 29:45

5M ago29:45

29:45

He played Hamlet in his thirties… and again in his eighties. In between? Edgar, Romeo, Leontes, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Iago, Richard III, Prospero, and King Lear. Plus, of course, Magneto and Gandalf.On this episode, we talk with Sir Ian McKellan. Last year, he played Hamlet in an age-blind production of the play at the Theatre Royal Windsor, returni…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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What Shakespeare Thought About the Mind, with Helen Hackett 34:26

6M ago34:26

34:26

If you’ve ever been watching Hamlet and asked yourself, “What on earth is Hamlet thinking?!” you’re not alone. But to figure that out, you might have to figure out what Hamlet—and Shakespeare—think about what it means to think. That’s the argument University College London professor Helen Hackett makes in her new book, The Elizabethan Mind: Searchi…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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John Adams Gives Antony and Cleopatra the Operatic Treatment 35:37

6M ago35:37

35:37

Celebrated American composer John Adams’s newest opera takes its inspiration from Shakespeare. . Adams talks with host Barbara Bogaev about how he turned a five-act play into a two-act opera—which scenes got the hook, new lines written in the style of the Bard, and what Shakespeare may have thought of the play’s characters. The Sunday, September 18…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Paterson Joseph: Julius Caesar and Me (Rebroadcast) 34:31

7M ago34:31

34:31

This summer marks the tenth anniversary of a landmark production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Their 2012 Julius Caesar was Britain’s first ever high-profile production of a Shakespeare play with an all-Black cast—a milestone that came 76 years after it was first done in the US and 15 years after it was first done in Canada. The production fea…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the Tabard Inn, with Martha Carlin (Rebroadcast) 19:58

7M ago19:58

19:58

What if Shakespeare and his friends had gotten together and carved their names on the wall of an inn made famous by Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales? In 2015, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee history professor Dr. Martha Carlin found an anecdote in a little-known, unpublished manuscript that suggests such a link between these two great English write…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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The Robben Island Shakespeare, with David Schalkwyk (Rebroadcast) 19:23

8M ago19:23

19:23

While Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on South Africa's Robben Island, one of the other political prisoners, Sonny Venkatrathnam, managed to retain a copy of Shakespeare's complete works. Venkatrathnam secretly circulated the book to many of his fellow prisoners—including Mandela—asking them to sign their names next to their favorite passages. As S…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Peter Brook (Rebroadcast) 38:00

9M ago38:00

38:00

Legendary director Peter Brook died last week at the age of 97. Brook was one of theater’s most influential directors. His 1970 A Midsummer Night’s Dream is among that play’s most lauded and best-known productions. His 1968 book The Empty Space is a classic of theater writing. Over the course of his career, he directed actors including John Gielgud…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Andrea Mays on The Millionaire and the Bard (Rebroadcast) 28:55

9M ago28:55

28:55

Henry Clay Folger paid a world record price for a book—not once, but twice—as he became the world's leading collector of Shakespeare First Folios. The Folger Shakespeare Library celebrated its 90th birthday this past April. Did you ever wonder how all of our books got here? We talk with economist and author Andrea Mays about The Millionaire and the…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Joe Papp and Shakespeare in the Park, with Kenneth Turan (Rebroadcast) 35:27

10M ago35:27

35:27

Joe Papp was responsible for some of modern American theater's most iconic institutions: New York City's free Shakespeare in the Park. The Public Theater. The whole idea of "Off-Broadway." We spoke with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan about Papp's life and works, from his hardscabble childhood, through the frightening era of Joe McCarth…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Brett Dean and Matthew Jocelyn on Their Hamlet Opera 33:56

10M ago33:56

33:56

A new opera version of Hamlet is onstage at New York’s Metropolitan Opera through June 9. Composer Brett Dean and librettist Matthew Jocelyn talk with host Barbara Bogaev about adapting the texts of the earliest editions of Hamlet to create a libretto that subverts expectations and composing orchestrations that take audiences inside the minds of Ha…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Shakespeare and Ukraine, with Irena Makaryk 32:30

11M ago32:30

32:30

Director Oleksandr “Les” Kurbas’s 1920 Macbeth was the first production of a Shakespeare play in Ukraine. Kurbas staged the play in the midst of the famine and violence of the Russian Civil War: Lady Macbeth fainted from hunger in the wings, and Kurbas used series of hand signals to warn the actors onstage that they were about to be shot at.Kurbas …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Leonard Barkan on Reading Shakespeare Reading Me 33:39

11M ago33:39

33:39

In Hamlet, Shakespeare writes that theater holds a “mirror up to nature.” In his new book, Princeton professor Leonard Barkan tells us that when he reads Shakespeare, it holds a mirror up to Leonard Barkan—and that when you read Shakespeare, it holds up a mirror to you.When most of us read, Barkan reminds us, we bring our own experiences to the tex…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Pamela Hutchinson on Asta Nielsen's Hamlet 34:22

12M ago34:22

34:22

In 1921, Asta Nielsen, one of the world’s biggest movie star in the world had just formed her own production company, and decided to open it up by playing Hamlet. Plenty of women had done that on the stage in the 19th century, but Nielsen’s performance had a twist. Inspired by a mysterious American’s quirky book, Nielsen decided to make a version o…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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How the Commedia Dell'Arte's Actresses Changed the Shakespearean Stage, with Pamela Allen Brown 29:43

12M ago29:43

29:43

English women didn’t act on London’s professional stages until the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. But Dr. Pamela Allen Brown, author of The Diva's Gift to the Shakespearean Stage, argues that star actresses from Italy altered both plays and playing despite this fact, a process that began in the 1570s, when commedia dell’arte troupes first set…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Matías Piñeiro on His Shakespeare-Adjacent Films 35:34

1y ago35:34

35:34

An Argentine woman translates "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" while incessantly taping travel postcards to a wall. An actress in Buenos Aires seduces her colleague while rehearsing a scene for "Twelfth Night." A theater troupe flirts its way through rehearsals of "As You Like It" in an Argentine forest. If you’re noticing a pattern here, you’re not mis…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Molly Yarn on Shakespeare's 'Lady Editors' 34:11

1y ago34:11

34:11

Over the centuries there have been hundreds of editions of Shakespeare’s plays: Small, inexpensive schoolbook copies of individual plays, massive, leatherbound editions of the complete works, and everything in between.At some point, every one of those editions passed under the eyes of an editor who decided which version of which disputed word would…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Stephen Marche on How Shakespeare Changed Everything 30:24

1y ago30:24

30:24

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…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Black Women Shakespeareans, 1821 – 1960, with Joyce Green MacDonald 33:27

1y ago33:27

33:27

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 fin…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Cutting Plays for Performance, with Aili Huber 34:31

1y ago34:31

34:31

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 p…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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J.R. Thorp on Learwife 37:18

1y ago37:18

37:18

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’ de…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Lena Cowen Orlin on The Private Life of William Shakespeare 35:07

1+ y ago35:07

35:07

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 …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Sir Antony Sher (Rebroadcast) 35:54

1+ y ago35:54

35:54

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…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Holidays in Shakespeare's England, with Erika T. Lin 32:52

1+ y ago32:52

32:52

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 …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Bringing Latinx Voices to Shakespeare, with Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa 32:37

1+ y ago32:37

32:37

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 …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Shakespeare's Language and Race, with Patricia Akhimie and Carol Mejia LaPerle 32:59

1+ y ago32:59

32:59

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 Meji…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Shakespeare in Latinx Communities, with José Cruz González and David Lozano 36:13

1+ y ago36:13

36:13

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 t…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Shakespeare and the British Royal Family, with Gordon McMullan 32:00

1+ y ago32:00

32:00

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 …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Mike Lew on Teenage Dick 27:01

1+ y ago27:01

27:01

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…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Mona Awad on All's Well 36:16

1+ y ago36:16

36:16

In her new novel, "All’s Well," author Mona Awad combines elements of Shakespeare's "All’s Well That Ends Well" and "Macbeth" and the 1999 movie "Election" to tell the story of Miranda Fitch, a theater professor with a mutinous cast of actors and excruciating chronic pain. What do those plays have in common, and how did Awad weave them together to …

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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How We Hear Shakespeare's Plays, with Carla Della Gatta 33:29

1+ y ago33:29

33:29

In Shakespeare’s time, people talked about going to hear a play and going to see one in equal measure. So, what exactly do we hear when we hear one of Shakespeare’s plays? What information do we gather from its words, music, or sound effects? What if it has been adapted, updated, or translated? We ask Dr. Carla Della Gatta of Florida State Universi…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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The Restoration Reinvention of Shakespeare 31:41

1+ y ago31:41

31:41

The next time someone complains about a director changing or tampering with Shakespeare… we’ve got an answer for them.The first generation of theater artists after Shakespeare weren’t particularly concerned about performing Shakespeare's plays the way they appear in the First Folio. After the English Civil War, the Puritan-led government outlawed t…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Madeline Sayet on Where We Belong 33:33

2y ago33:33

33:33

In her play "Where We Belong," Mohegan director playwright, and performer Madeline Sayet recalls her 2015 journey to the UK to pursue the PhD in Shakespeare that she never ended up getting. The play, now available in a world premiere film adaptation produced by Woolly Mammoth Theater Company and the Folger, explains why she left the degree behind a…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Geoffrey Marsh on Shakespeare's Neighbors 32:19

2y ago32:19

32:19

What would we find out about you if we got to know your neighbors? What if we took a walk around the neighborhood where you live?That's the way that Geoffrey Marsh hopes to learn more about Shakespeare in his new book, Living with Shakespeare. Starting with a 1598 tax roll that lists Shakespeare's names among the residents of St. Helen's parish, th…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Race and Blackness in Elizabethan England 33:24

2y ago33:24

33:24

When did the concept of race develop? How far should we look back to find the attitudes that bolster white supremacy? We ask Dr. Ambereen Dadabhoy, an assistant professor of literature at Harvey Mudd College, and the author of a chapter in the monumental new Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race called “Barbarian Moors: Documenting Racial For…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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All the Sonnets of Shakespeare 34:11

2y ago34:11

34:11

Over 400 years after Shakespeare’s sonnets were first published in 1609, what is left to learn? "All the Sonnets of Shakespeare," a new edition of the sonnets published in 2020, takes some bold steps to help us look at the poems with new eyes. The book, co-edited by Dr. Paul Edmondson and Sir Stanley Wells, dispenses with the Sonnets’ traditional n…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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"Richard III" in Prison 32:50

2y ago32:50

32:50

Frannie Shepherd-Bates founded Shakespeare in Prison in 2012. Nine years later, SIP is the signature community program of the Detroit Public Theatre, and has worked on a total of eight plays with a women’s ensemble at Huron Valley Correctional Facility and a men’s ensemble at Parnall Correctional Facility.When one of the members of the men’s ensemb…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Simon Godwin on "Romeo and Juliet" 35:13

2y ago35:13

35:13

The National Theatre’s new production of "Romeo and Juliet" was meant to premiere in the summer of 2020. But when the COVID-19 pandemic began, Simon Godwin, the production’s director, was tasked with turning it into a 90-minute film shot entirely in the National’s Littleton Theatre.Now, as the film approaches its United States premiere, Godwin sees…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Shakespeare and Lost Plays 36:51

2y ago36:51

36:51

Today, the texts of roughly three thousand plays from the great age of Elizabethan theater are lost to us. The plays that remain constitute only a sixth of all of the drama produced during that period. How do we make sense of a swiss-cheese history with more holes than cheese? The Lost Plays Database tries to fill in those holes. It’s an open-acces…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Stephen Hopkins and "Stephano" 24:01

2y ago24:01

24:01

He was in a shipwreck. He was at Jamestown. He was on the Mayflower. And maybe, just maybe, he’s in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.Documentary filmmaker Andrew Buckley’s ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, was the only passenger on the Mayflower who had previously been to the Americas. Eleven years before the Mayflower landed in what is now Massachusetts, Hopkin…

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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

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Meme García on "house of sueños" 34:47

2y ago34:47

34:47

For generations, artists have been shaping and changing Shakespeare to fit their times. The best adaptations add specific textures of place and culture, or a fluidity of language that can take centuries-old work and make it brand new. Seattle Shakespeare Company is presenting one of those works: a Salvadoran-American adaptation of "Hamlet" called "…

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