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Shakespeare & Beyond

The Wonder of Will Live: Hear from Kal Penn, Justice Stephen Breyer, and other presenters

The Wonder of Will Live
The Wonder of Will Live

What better way to pay tribute to the world’s greatest storyteller than with stories, Folger Director Michael Witmore said as he welcomed the audience to a special event commemorating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death on April 23, The Wonder of Will Live.

The chancellor of DC Public Schools, NASA’s chief scientist, and other guests shared their Shakespeare stories onstage at the event, broadcast live on C-SPAN2’s Book TV from the Folger’s historic Paster Reading Room. Afterwards, Book TV’s Peter Slen hosted a national call-in show with Michael Witmore and Ellen MacKay, director of Indiana University’s Institute for the Digital Arts and Humanities. The archived program is available to watch on the C-SPAN website.

In this clip from The Wonder of Will Live, actor Kal Penn, who shares a birthday with Shakespeare on April 23, recalls watching the Franco Zeffirelli adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in high school, and how it changed his mind about Shakespeare: