Macbeth

19th century superstar Charlotte Cushman’s final performances included benefits for Union troops during the American Civil War. The fundraising organizers thanked her with commemorative albums now in the Folger collection.

Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, Macbeth, tells a story of ambition, violent murder, and its crippling psychological aftereffects, all foretold by a trio of witches. Explore some of the play’s most well-known lines, in order of their appearance.

Womersley shares how tragedies like Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear place audiences inside difficult moral dilemmas, inviting us to wrestle with enduring questions about identity, power, and what it means to do the right thing.

Austin Tichenor shares three takes on Shakespeare’s Macbeth that focus on the human struggle within the tragedy in new and unexpected ways, including a production at the RSC, a novel about Lady Macbeth, and a film for streaming.

Ansel shares how her questions as an artist fellow about Fuseli’s take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth inspired her to create two abstract, large-scale oil paintings but this time from a woman’s perspective that celebrates the play’s sisterhood.

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.”

Austin Tichenor explores how the shift of a narrative’s perspective can offer answers to questions about which characters deserve redemption and our forgiveness, from Lear to Iago to Richard III.

Washington National Opera’s Artistic Director Francesca Zambello interviews director, Brenna Corner, about Verdi’s opera inspired by Macbeth.

James Shapiro explores the cultural and political impact of the New Deal theater program in The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War.

Read about the Federal Theatre Project’s 1936 Harlem production of Macbeth in this excerpt from The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro.

Isabelle Schuler tells us about her new novel, Queen Hereafter.

As Halloween approaches, we take a look at Shakespeare’s best quotations about fear.