Shakespeare Unlimited podcast

Based on Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays, Harvard’s Dr. Jeffrey R. Wilson thought he knew how Game of Thrones would play out. But he discovered different similarities, like the way that both translate the history of the Wars of the Roses into other popular genres.

In Shakespeare’s time, new scientific discoveries and mathematical concepts were upending the way people looked at their world. Dr. Natalie Elliot shares how Shakespeare interpreted the scientific innovations of the early modern period in his works.

After playing Hal in Henry IV, Part 1 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, actor John Tufts wrote a cookbook, Fat Rascals: Dining at Shakespeare’s Table. He shares how to make a pork pasty inspired by Titus Andronicus and the 17th-century chef Robert May.

For most of the 1700s, Shakespeare was considered a very good playwright, but in the 1800s, he became a prophet. The Victorians believed his works offered religious revelations. Scholar Charles LaPorte examines this moment in literary and religious history.

What does it mean to read a play like Titus Andronicus with questions of race in mind? Scholar David Sterling Brown, who has written extensively about that play, discusses the ways that such a reading reveals an entire dimension of racial imagery and racial violence.

The Show Must Go Online creatively uses the everyday facts of life in a pandemic—living rooms, laptops, and, of course, Zoom—to bring actors from around the world together in innovative performances of Shakespeare’s plays. And it all started with one tweet from actor Robert Myles.

Over the past 20 years, Rebecca Totaro has been collecting contemporary writing about the plague. We asked her to join us for a conversation about what Shakespeare’s contemporaries wrote about the plague—and why, just as often, they turned away from it.

Charlotte Cushman was one of the most famous American theater artists of the mid-19th century. And while she was known for her Lady Macbeth and Oliver Twist’s Nancy, she was acclaimed for her performances as Romeo and Hamlet.

Joining forces with public radio’s WNYC during the pandemic, the Public Theater did something that hadn’t been done before: a four-night serialized Richard II with expert analysis and stories from cast members. We go behind the scenes to learn how they did it.

Anne and William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died in 1596, when he was 11 years old. We don’t know too much more about him. But author Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, Hamnet, delves into his story and comes away with a lyrical and moving portrait of a family’s grief.

No two theater directors approach Shakespeare’s plays in the same way. When it comes to setting, blocking, costuming, casting, and cutting, there are countless ways directors can shape Shakespeare to make his works their own.

D.W. Young’s documentary explores the New York rare book world in all its depth, breadth, history, and quirkiness. He talks about the magic of old books, bookseller myths, and what the future of the rare book community might hold.