Podcasts and recordings
Explore Shakespeare and his world with our podcasts and recordings.
Shakespeare Unlimited
When British radio listeners voted William Shakespeare their “British Person of the Millennium,” the honor was entirely understandable. Shakespeare and his works are woven throughout not only English-speaking culture, but global culture. As you’ll hear in this podcast, Shakespeare turns up in the most interesting places—not just literature and the stage, but science and social history as well. Join us for this “no limits” podcast tour of the fascinating and varied connections between Shakespeare, his works, and the world around us.
Find Shakespeare Unlimited on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Recent episodes
Surekha Davies on the Making of Monsters
What do monsters reveal about how we define humanity? Historian Surekha Davies explores how early modern ideas of race, colonialism, and the monstrous shaped European thought—and how echoes still shape our world today, from The Tempest to AI.
Reimagining Judith Shakespeare with Grace Tiffany
Judith Shakespeare’s untold story comes to life in The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter. Tiffany imagines Judith’s journey through rebellion and scandal in a world of political upheaval and Puritan rule. Explore the history, fiction, and legacy of Shakespeare’s daughter.
Julia Armfield Reimagines King Lear in a Drowning World
How does King Lear resonate in a world reshaped by climate change? Julia Armfield’s Private Rites, set in a flooded London, explores inheritance, power, and queerness amid disaster. Longlisted for the 2024 Climate Fiction Prize, she shares how Shakespeare influences her work.
Lauren Gunderson on the Women of Hamlet
What if Gertrude had more power than we thought? What if Ophelia’s fate wasn’t sealed? Playwright Lauren Gunderson reclaims the voices of Hamlet’s women in A Room in the Castle, a sharp, feminist reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
Shakespeare’s narrative poems
How did early modern England perceive race? Patricia Akhimie, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, and contributing writers Dennis Britton and Kirsten Mendoza examine race, gender, and power in Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
Nisha Sharma on Adapting Shakespeare for Modern Romances
In her If Shakespeare Were an Auntie trilogy, Nisha Sharma reimagines The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night as contemporary romances in the South Asian diaspora.
Shakespeare and his contemporaries, with Darren Freebury-Jones
Darren Freebury-Jones explores the ways in which Shakespeare reshaped the works of contemporaries like John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, and Christopher Marlowe into something distinctly his own.
Directing Romeo and Juliet, with Sam Gold
Director Sam Gold reflects on the challenges and joys of reinterpreting a well-known story for Broadway and shares the creative process behind staging a Romeo and Juliet that feels relevant to a whole new generation of theatergoers.
The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, with Helen Castor
What happens when a king loses his people’s trust? Historian Helen Castor delves into the 14th century drama behind Richard II’s fall and Henry IV’s rise, the events that inspired Shakespeare’s celebrated history plays.
Studying Shakespeare Now
Discover how the Folger’s new teaching guides make Shakespeare’s works more engaging, accessible, and relevant, with strategies for teaching the plays, tackling topics like race and gender, and meeting the needs of today’s students.
More Podcasts and Recordings
Shakespeare in American Life
Explore Shakespeare’s influence on American performance, politics, and popular culture in this radio documentary narrated by Sam Waterston.
The Folger Shakespeare Audio Editions
Listen to full-cast dramatizations of the unabridged texts of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, available from Simon & Schuster Audio.
Shakespeare's Birthday Lectures
Every year, the Folger celebrates Shakespeare birthday with a public lecture from a Shakespearean. Listen to recordings of recent talks from scholars including Julia Reinhard Lupton, Wendy Wall, Jonathan Bate, Stephen Greenblatt, and others.
Shakespeare Anniversary Lecture Series
In 2016, the Folger Institute’s Center for Shakespeare Studies commemorated the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with a series of public lectures. Listen to talks by Michael Witmore, Tiffany Stern, Kim Hall, and others.
Men of Letters: Shakespeare's Influence on Abraham Lincoln
Three books sat on Abraham Lincoln’s White House desk. One of them was the works of Shakespeare—a writer Lincoln cherished throughout his life. Learn about Shakespeare’s enduring influence on Lincoln and on Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, as well as why Shakespeare continues to occupy a special place in the hearts of political leaders.
'Now Thrive the Armorers": Arms and Armor in Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s plays dramatize a military culture in transition, as Richard II’s knights on horseback give way to Othello’s career army men. Featuring Jeffrey Forgeng of the Higgins Armory Museum and Barbara Mowat, Co-Editor of The Folger Shakespeare.
Line by Line
Listen to select recordings from the Folger’s archive of poetry readings.
Lend me your ears.
–Julius Caesar, 3.2