Inspired by Shakespeare

As he wraps up his final season as Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival, Antoni Cimolino discusses revisiting The Tempest, the power of forgiveness, and the “rough magic” that makes theater possible.

Shakespeare’s plays—and plays and musicals inspired by him—are always a feature of the Edinburgh Fringe, the world’s largest performing arts festival. Austin Tichenor shares some of the 40 productions playing in Scotland this August.

When scholar and Everyday Shakespeare host Caroline Bicks gained unprecedented access to Stephen King’s personal archives, she discovered that the Bard of Avon and the King of Horror have more in common than you might think.

She appears in four of Shakespeare’s plays and speaks the most lines of any of his female characters. Authors Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern shine the spotlight on Margaret of Anjou, Shakespeare’s most deliciously complex anti-heroine.

60 years after the premiere of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, a new stage comedy is using Stoppard’s absurdist template to explore the fears and struggles of the two main clowns from Much Ado About Nothing.

In 2004, Barbie released two Shakespeare-inspired dolls for their Classic Ballet series: the fairy queen Titania from the 1962 ballet adaptation of Mendelssohn’s score for Midsummer and Juliet from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet 1940 ballet.

Shakespeare never attended university, but his plays have inspired generations of scholars. They’re also filled with learned characters. Sean Keilen shares what Shakespeare’s fictional intellectuals can teach us about the purpose of scholarship.

Austin Tichenor writes about why the behind-the-scenes workings of a Shakespeare theater festival make for such great television in Slings and Arrows and the connections with its sequel-in-spirit American Classic starring Kevin Kline.

As writer and performer Jacob Ming-Trent prepares for the world premiere of How Shakespeare Saved My Life at Folger Theatre, he delves deeper into his story—and reframes Shakespeare as an urban poet in the vein of Tupac and Biggie.

From Ellen Terry to Sir Ian McKellen, Shakespearean actors performing solo shows is a time-honored tradition. Austin Tichenor shares a wide-ranging sampling of one-person Shakespeare shows from the past century.

A century after Shakespeare’s death, his words were in danger of being forgotten. Christine and Jonathan Hainsworth reveal how the Shakespeare Ladies Club rescued Shakespeare’s plays and made him the cultural icon he is today.

He’s quoted Shakespeare in numerous speeches, from his first as king to his most recent at the White House during his state visit at the end of April. But Charles III’s interest in Shakespeare goes all the way back to his school days.