Shakespeare & Beyond

Can you imagine Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra transposed to rural India, where Antony becomes a cock fighter and Cleopatra a medicine woman? Or what about a Hamlet in the Himalayas, with the title character seeking forgiveness and reconciliation instead of revenge? Mark…

David Garrick and George Anne Bellamy in Romeo and Juliet. Based on a painting by Benjamn Wilson engraved by Ravenet. Enamel, ca. 1765. Folger Shakespeare Library. The leading actor-manager of the 1700s, David Garrick revolutionized English theatre with a lively,…

This Marlon Brando costume is on display with the First Folio exhibition at Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, IL. From a Hot Pepper Shakespeare contest to a Romeo and Juliet masquerade ball, the party doesn’t stop. These First Folio…

Abraham Lincoln. Copyright 1894 by H.W. Fay. Folger Shakespeare Library. Growing up on the frontier, Abraham Lincoln had few books to read in his early days—but among them were the works of Shakespeare, which Lincoln cherished throughout his life. The…

Whether you’re giving a valentine to a sweetheart or a friend, why not say it with Shakespeare? We have a new set of beautifully illustrated Shakespeare valentines for you, just in time for Valentine’s Day. You can view the complete…

This year we remember the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. But 1616 also saw the passing of another great writer: Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, who we know best as the author of Don Quijote. As Shakespeare…

The diary of physician and vicar John Ward contains the only known account of Shakespeare’s death. On March 6, 1662/63 he writes, “Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespear died…

Over the course of 2016, the Folger Shakespeare Library is sending a First Folio to all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. Each month we’ll be checking in on the progress of this traveling exhibition, First Folio! The Book that Gave…

How did you first encounter Shakespeare? Was it in a classroom or a theater? How old were you? Was it love at first sight, or did it take you some time to warm up to the Bard? Did any particular lines or…

When we think about Shakespeare on the stage we usually imagine two different historical moments: ‘then’ and ‘now’. ‘Then’ is Shakespeare’s lifetime, when Richard Burbage, the original Hamlet, first spoke ‘To be or not to be’ from the stage of…

Laura Wayth confesses that she’s never read any of Shakespeare’s plays. But she’s listened to the plays performed over and over, and it’s her keen ear that informs her advice to actors in this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited. Wayth is…

Barry Kraft as Lear in King Lear, produced by Southern Oregon University, Oregon Center for the Arts. (Credit: Prechtel photo) What can we learn from Shakespeare’s revisions to his plays, and what does that mean for the actors and directors…