Inspired by Shakespeare

The Improvised Shakespeare Company has been creating hilarious Shakespearean masterpieces—from an audience suggestion of a title of a show that has never been written—for 20 years. Austin Tichenor shares how they do it.

Discover books, costume sketches, and theatrical props for Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the Folger collection along with items from Folger Theatre’s production of Al Letson’s Julius X: A Re-envisioning of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. 

Journalist, playwright, and poet Al Letson talks about Julius X, his play that borrows lines, characters, and plot from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to tell the story of Malcolm X. He shares the play’s origins and his approach to creating art.

Can reading King Lear help us rethink economic policy? Can Measure for Measure shape how we talk about justice? Professors Laurette Dubé and Paul Yachnin explore how Shakespeare can help us imagine more humane systems for our world.

We’re celebrating Pride Month by sharing some of our Shakespeare Unlimited podcast interviews and blog posts with acclaimed artists, actors, directors, scholars, and writers about queer Shakespeare over the centuries.

In Shakespeare’s time, women onstage were played by boys, and for those boy players, fame could be fleeting. Nicole Galland’s novel Boy follows Alexander “Sander” Cooke, a real-life actor in Shakespeare’s company.

What is Shakespeare’s role in a genre of literature—science fiction—that flourished centuries after his plays first took the stage? Scholar Sarah Annes Brown explores the influence of Shakespeare the man and his writing.

Austin Tichenor travels back to Elizabethan England with Nicole Galland’s novel Boy about Shakespeare’s acting company member Alexander Cooke in a surprisingly contemporary exploration of gender roles onstage and off.

Author Anthony Del Col shares how the newest Kill Shakespeare adventure found its inspiration in Westerns like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Who was Lambert Simnel—the boy who nearly claimed the Tudor throne? Author Jo Harkin explores royal ambition, historical memory, and the fine line between fact and fiction in her new novel The Pretender.

One of 18th-century Britain’s most prolific narrative painters, Henry Fuseli found inspiration in Shakespeare, with his painting of Macbeth and the witches one of his “best poetical conceptions.”

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.