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Shakespeare & Beyond

Shakespeare & Beyond

The Shakespeare & Beyond blog features a wide range of Shakespeare-related topics: the early modern period in which he lived, the ways his plays have been interpreted and staged over the past four centuries, the enduring power of his characters and language, and more.

A history of Theatre Royal Haymarket and its struggle to break through London's restrictions on Shakespeare
Haymarket theater
Shakespeare and Beyond

A history of Theatre Royal Haymarket and its struggle to break through London's restrictions on Shakespeare

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Alexandra E. LaGrand

William Capon. Theatre Royal Haymarket. August 1803. Folger Shakespeare Library. During a time when performing Shakespeare in London was a legal right belonging only to certain theaters, the Haymarket theater’s rise to greatness is directly linked to its struggle to…

Quiz: Match Shakespeare characters with costume designs
Costume design
Shakespeare and Beyond

Quiz: Match Shakespeare characters with costume designs

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Shakespeare & Beyond

We’ve selected some costume designs from the Folger Shakespeare Library collection, and your challenge is to determine which Shakespeare characters they depict. Pay attention to small details that will give you clues! Many of the designs are watercolors from the…

Living through the plague times - Excerpt: 'Death By Shakespeare' by Kathryn Harkup
book cover
Shakespeare and Beyond

Living through the plague times - Excerpt: 'Death By Shakespeare' by Kathryn Harkup

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Shakespeare & Beyond

What would it have been like to live through the plague outbreaks of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? And what insight does that give us into the mentions of plague in Shakespeare’s plays? Kathryn Harkup has looked at the science…

Sonnets & Chill: What did Shakespeare’s audiences do when the theaters were closed?
One person reading a letter to another person with a dog
Shakespeare and Beyond

Sonnets & Chill: What did Shakespeare’s audiences do when the theaters were closed?

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Author
Austin Tichenor

Speed reading Launce’s letter : / J. Gilbert ; W. Thomas, sc. 19th century. Folger Shakespeare Library. ART File S528t7 no.10 (size XS)All right, enough. We’ve all heard how super-productive William Shakespeare was when the plague shut down his theaters:…

Hares, conies, and rabbits: The hunted and the melancholy
picture of a cony
Shakespeare and Beyond

Hares, conies, and rabbits: The hunted and the melancholy

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Haylie Swenson

Edward Topsell. The historie of foure-footed beastes. 1607. Folger Shakespeare Library. STC 24123 Copy 2. When, in Henry IV, Part II, Bardolph calls his page a “whoreson upright rabbit,” he’s not exactly thinking of the animal we now know as…

Share Your Shakespeare: Highlights from our 2020 Shakespeare's Birthday celebration
children performing a scene from Shakespeare
Shakespeare and Beyond

Share Your Shakespeare: Highlights from our 2020 Shakespeare's Birthday celebration

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Shakespeare & Beyond

For Shakespeare’s birthday this year, the Folger Shakespeare Library partnered with the Royal Shakespeare Company to throw a virtual birthday party for Shakespeare, inviting people all around the world to #ShareYourShakespeare. Fans responded by reciting Shakespeare lines, staging scenes, striking…

Excerpt - "How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education" by Scott Newstok
How to Think Like Shakespeare
Shakespeare and Beyond

Excerpt - "How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education" by Scott Newstok

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Shakespeare & Beyond

What habits of mind should we seek to cultivate? In his new book How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, Scott Newstok draws on Shakespeare’s plays and common instructional practices of his day to answer this question.…

Shakespeare at a distance: When the playhouses close but performance continues
Watercolor sketch of the Globe stage
Shakespeare and Beyond

Shakespeare at a distance: When the playhouses close but performance continues

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Daniel Blank

Watercolor sketch of the Globe stage by Cyril Walter Hodges. Folger Shakespeare Library. The coronavirus pandemic has forced the closure of theaters around the world, and it might seem at first glance that the theater community has come to a…

Edward Dering and the earliest record of an amateur private performance of a Shakespeare play
The Dering manuscript
Shakespeare and Beyond

Edward Dering and the earliest record of an amateur private performance of a Shakespeare play

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emma poltrack

Recently New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley extolled the virtues of reading plays out loud in your living room as a way to while away the COVID-19 time at home. Memories of his own time reading Hamlet as a…

Your guide to streaming Shakespeare in April
Shakespeare and Beyond

Your guide to streaming Shakespeare in April

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Ben Lauer

Here’s how to watch Shakespeare from home this month, featuring performances from your favorite theater companies and films on streaming platforms like Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix.

Quiz: What do you know about the life of William Shakespeare?
Shakespeare and his family
Shakespeare and Beyond

Quiz: What do you know about the life of William Shakespeare?

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Shakespeare & Beyond

You may know that April 23 is the day we mark William Shakespeare’s birth and death. But what else do you know about his life and family? Test your knowledge with this quiz.

Savor Shakespeare's sonnets with Patrick Stewart
Shakespeare and Beyond

Savor Shakespeare's sonnets with Patrick Stewart

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Shakespeare & Beyond

Need some quality poetry to help you through these difficult times? Sir Patrick Stewart has been reading a Shakespeare sonnet a day on Twitter.

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