Adrian Lester on Playing Rosalind, Henry V, Othello, and Hamlet
Actor Adrian Lester walks us through big moments in his illustrious career, including Cheek by Jowl’s all-male “As You Like It” and Peter Brook’s “Hamlet.”
Patrick Page on King Lear and Shakespeare's Villains
Patrick Page tells us how he gets inside the mind of Lear in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s 2023 production.
Debra Ann Byrd on Becoming Othello
Theater-maker and past Folger Fellow Debra Ann Byrd tells us about her solo show.
Talene Monahon on Her New Revenge Comedy, Jane Anger
Talene Monahon’s play Jane Anger was inspired by the pandemic and a radical 16th-century proto-feminist pamphlet.
Ian McKellen on Richard III, Macbeth, and Gandalf
Sir Ian McKellen tells us about some of his most famous roles: playing Macbeth opposite Dame Judi Dench, King Richard III with a screenplay he co-wrote, and Gandalf the Grey in The Lord of the Rings films.
Ian McKellen on Playing Hamlet
Sir Ian McKellen played Hamlet in his thirties, and again in his eighties. He gives us his take on the Melancholy Dane.
Madeline Sayet on Where We Belong
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 170 In her play Where We Belong, Mohegan director playwright, and performer Madeline Sayet recalls her 2015 journey to the UK to pursue the PhD in Shakespeare that she never ended up getting. The play, now available in a…
Fat Rascals: In the Kitchen with John Tufts
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 157 Actor John Tufts was playing Hal in a production of Henry IV, Part 1 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Every night, he would call Falstaff a “roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly.” Hal means…
Casey Wilder Mott and Fran Kranz on their LA Midsummer
Shakespeare Unlimited Episode 123 Director Casey Wilder Mott’s 2017 film adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream sets Shakespeare’s story in modern Los Angeles, where aspiring filmmakers, eccentric artists, studio execs, and surfers bounce off one another in a riot of…
The Gender Politics of Kiss Me, Kate
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 122 A new production of Kiss Me, Kate is on Broadway now. It features Cole Porter’s memorable music and Kelli O’Hara and Will Chase as Lilli Vanessi and Fred Graham, a bickering divorced couple thrown together when…
Glenda Jackson
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 121 The great Glenda Jackson is back on the stage. In 1992, the Emmy and two-time Academy Award winner was elected to Parliament. She spent the next 23 years in Britain’s House of Commons. Since returning to…
Harriet Walter
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 118 In 2012, London’s Donmar Warehouse opened an all-female production of Julius Caesar, starring Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus and directed by Tony Award-nominated director Phyllida Lloyd. The production was set in a women’s prison, and it was…