Shakespeare Unlimited

Joe Papp was responsible for some of modern American theater's most iconic institutions: New York City's free Shakespeare in the Park. The Public Theater. The whole idea of "Off-Broadway." We spoke with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan about Papp's life and work, from his hardscrabble childhood, through the frightening era of Joe McCarthy, to the founding of Shakespeare in the Park and the Public. Ken's epic oral history of the early years of the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater, "Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told," published in 2009. He spent untold hours with Papp and also talked with New York politicians, Broadway producers, and seeming everyone else who helped Papp make Shakespeare in the Park a reality, including actors James Earl Jones, George C. Scott, Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Colleen Dewhurst, Tommy Lee Jones, and a Staten Island car-wash employee who would go on to play Romeo under the name of Martin Sheen. Ken is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast series. Published August 7, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. This podcast episode, "This Green Plot Shall Be Our Stage," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Lauren Cascio and Nick Bozzone at Formosa Commercials recording studio in Santa Monica, California.

In 2011, Ben Steinfeld and Noah Brody, co-directors of New York’s Fiasco Theater, were invited to an assisted living facility and nursing home just outside New York City to work with its residents on a production of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." Because it was The Lillian Booth Actors Home—a facility filled with retired singers, actors, dancers and musicians—Ben and Noah expected to work with a group of seasoned Broadway professionals. While there were some, the cast they finally assembled was largely anything but. Ben and Noah were invited on this adventure by filmmakers Jilann Spitzmiller and Hank Rogerson, who turned the process into a documentary called Still Dreaming. We talk about the experience with Ben Steinfeld and Hank Rogerson. Hank Rogerson is a filmmaker who, with Jilann Spitzmiller, produced Still Dreaming. Ben Steinfeld is co-artistic director of Fiasco Theater. He co-directed, with Noah Brody, the Lillian Booth Actors Home’s production of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." Hank and Ben are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast series. Published July 24, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “A Dream Past the Wit of Man,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

What did everyday life look like for women throughout Tudor society? A new social history, "The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women by Elizabeth Norton," introduces us not only to the restrictions, but also to some of the surprising freedoms that touched these women’s lives. Hear the stories of remarkable women who owned businesses, stood up to kings, and lived independently. Elizabeth Norton is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published July 10, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, Talkest Thou Nothing but of Ladies?, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

“How is it possible for a whole country to fall into the hands of a tyrant? That’s a deeply unsettling question that Shakespeare grappled with again and again.” Stephen Greenblatt’s new book, "Tyrant," explores tyranny in Shakespeare’s plays. In the 100th episode of Shakespeare Unlimited, we talk with the eminent Shakespeare scholar about characters like Richard III and Macbeth; how societies allow tyranny to pop up; and how and why Shakespeare used its depiction in his work to stir the audiences of his time. Stephen Greenblatt is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. "Tyrant" was published in 2018 by W. W. Norton & Company. Greenblatt is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 26, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "He Affects Tyrannical Power" was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Over the course of three summers in the 1950s, Arthur Lithgow, Meredith Dallas, and a troupe of actors they’d gathered performed every single one of Shakespeare plays, in rep, at the Antioch Shakespeare Festival, also known as Shakespeare Under the Stars, at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This podcast episode brings together the children of the festival’s founders to talk about their fathers’ work and its legacy: Tony Dallas, Robin Lithgow, and the Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award-winning actor John Lithgow. John, Robin, and Tony are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published June 12, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "I Live to Speak My Father’s Words," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

In 2012 the Royal Shakespeare Company staged the first-ever, high-profile, all-black British Shakespeare production, "Julius Caesar," set in Africa. The actor who played Brutus, Paterson Joseph, recently wrote a book about the experience called "Julius Caesar and Me: Exploring Shakespeare’s African Play." Paterson Joseph is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 29, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "Bear It, As Our Roman Actors Do," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

London in the time of William Shakespeare was a city in the midst of a phenomenal metamorphosis. During the course of Shakespeare’s professional life, the city experienced a meteoric transition, rocketing from the capital of the hinterlands to a cosmopolitan city on its way to becoming the capital of the western world. Stephen Alford, a professor of early modern British history at the University of Leeds and the author London's Triumph: Merchants, Adventurers, and Money in Shakespeare’s City, is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 15, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, Wander Up and Down to View the City, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Nearly 30 people were killed in May 1849 when fans of American actor Edwin Forrest rioted inside and outside New York’s Astor Place Opera House during a performance by Forrest’s rival, the British actor William Charles Macready. Barbara Bogaev interviews Heather Nathans and Karl Kippola about the riot. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published May 1, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, His Headstrong Riot Hath No Curb, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Hear Sir Ben Kingsley, Earle Hyman, Liev Schreiber, James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, Estelle Parsons, and others open up about their experiences with Shakespeare’s plays. Actor/director Melinda Hall interviewed these actors (and others), as well as writers, directors, linguists, and even a Holocaust survivor for her web-video series "How Shakespeare Changed My Life." She is interviewed here by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published April 17, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "Mine Honor, Yea, My Life Be Thine," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Antony Sher talks about his experiences with the Royal Shakespeare Company and his roles as Lear in 2016, Falstaff in 2013, and Richard III in 1984. In preparing for these roles, Sher kept meticulous diaries, which he later published as books— "Year of the King" for Richard, "Year of the Fat Knight" for Falstaff, and now "Year of the Mad King," which chronicles his experiences with the most grueling role Shakespeare ever wrote for an older actor. Sher is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published April 3, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "Go Get It Ready," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Independent scholar Dennis McCarthy and Lafayette College English professor June Schlueter say they have discovered a major new source for Shakespeare’s Richard III, Henry V, Henry VI, Part II, and at least eight other plays. The scholarly world continues to investigate and debate these new claims, which, if proved true, would be a once-in-a-generation find. On this podcast episode, McCarthy and Schlueter discuss how they used plagiarism-detecting software to analyze a nearly-450-year-old unpublished manuscript called A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels by a man named George North, finding multiple instances of matches with passages in Shakespeare plays. Published March 20, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, Put Your Discourse into Some Frame, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Actor Derek Jacobi talks about his remarkable career, including advice he received from Richard Burton, a disappointing rejection by the Royal Shakespeare Company, sharing the stage with Laurence Olivier, performing King Lear in 2010, his collaborations with Kenneth Branagh, and a struggle with paralyzing stage fright that drove him away from the theater for two years in the 1980s. He was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. This is Part 2 of a two-part interview. Published March 6, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode “O, For A Muse Of Fire!”  was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Renowned actor Derek Jacobi talks about the Shakespearean role for which he is best known, Hamlet. Beginning at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1957, Jacobi has acted this role on stage nearly 400 times, and as you can imagine, he’s devoted hours to thinking about Hamlet’s words, Hamlet’s motivations, and the best way to play the role. Derek Jacobi was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. This is the first of a two-part interview. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published February 20, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Do not saw the air with your hands, thus,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Bernard Cornwell, a bestselling writer of historical fiction such as the Sharpe series, has turned to the world of the Elizabethan theater. His newest novel, Fools and Mortals, is a tale of love, intrigue, opulence, and violence, all narrated by William Shakespeare’s brother Richard. Bernard Cornwell was interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published February 6, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Masters, Here Are Your Parts” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Orson Welles is perhaps most famous for his panic-inducing radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds and the award-winning film Citizen Kane. For his entire life though, Welles's obsession was Shakespeare. He produced and starred in Shakespeare plays on Broadway and directed and starred in multiple versions of Shakespeare's work on film, including Chimes at Midnight. Our guest is Michael Anderegg, the author of Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published January 23, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “A Rescue, a Rescue!” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer.

Getting audiences interested in Romeo and Juliet might be easy. But what about those more unfamiliar Shakespeare plays? Here’s an insider’s take on marketing and promotion at America’s Shakespeare festivals and theaters. Our guests are Katie Perkowski, Director of Marketing at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery, Alabama; Jeff Fickes, who is Communications Director at the Seattle Shakespeare Company; and Emma Corey, Director of Marketing and Communications at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison, New York. All three are part of the Folger’s Theater Partnership Program. They are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published January 9, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “There is the Playhouse Now, There Must You Sit” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. For more information, show credits, and transcript: https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/marketing

Sixteenth-century theater companies used a variety of physical and sensual staging effects in their productions to create a full-body experience for playgoers: fireworks hissing and shooting across the stage, fake blood, fake body parts, the smell of blood and death, and more. Farah Karim-Cooper and Tiffany Stern are the editors of a 2013 collection of essays, Shakespeare’s Theatre and the Effects of Performance, written by themselves and nine other theater historians. Tiffany Stern is a Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama with the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon. Farah Karim-Cooper is Head of Higher Education and Research at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Tiffany and Farah are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published December 13, 2017. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, Awake Your Senses, was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Esther French is the web producer. We had production help from Cathy Devlin and Dom Boucher at the Sound Company in London and Paul Luke and Andrew Feliciano at at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

In 2015, on a state visit to Great Britain, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping called 17th-century Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu the “Shakespeare of the East,” and ever since, the Ministry of Culture for the People’s Republic has made a concerted push to elevate Tang to the status of Shakespeare. This episode explores just who Tang Xianzu was, and – more broadly – looks at what role Shakespeare plays in modern-day China. Our guests, Wei Feng and Alexa Alice Joubin, study the intersection of China and Shakespeare. They are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published November 29, 2017. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "I See My Reputation is at Stake," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Esther French is the web producer. We’d like to thank Dr. Ruru Li, Professor of Chinese Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds in Great Britain; writer and journalist Andrew Dickson; Liz Thompson, Philippa Harland and Shihui Weng at the Royal Shakespeare Company; and Paul Hollman at The Dubroom Studio in West Hollywood, California.

Shakespeare and his plays crop up in science fiction in a number of surprising places, from classic stories like Isaac Asimov’s “The Immortal Bard” to TV shows like Star Trek and Doctor Who. And it’s not just these more recent works: a production of Macbeth figures in Mary Shelley’s post-apocalyptic novel The Last Man, written in the 1820s. Our guest on this episode is Sarah Annes Brown, a professor of English Literature at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England, and co-director of the university’s Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy. She’s writing a book that looks at representations of how Shakespeare’s plays are performed in the future. Sarah Brown is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published November 14, 2017. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, "I Shall Tell You a Pretty Tale," was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Esther French is the web producer. We had help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California and Roger Chatterton at Kite Recording Studio in Cambridge, England.

The author of the Patrick Melrose novels talks about adapting the story of one of Shakespeare’s most dysfunctional families for the Hogarth Shakespeare series. In Edward St. Aubyn’s version of “King Lear,” called “Dunbar,” Lear becomes a media mogul whose evil daughters have locked him away in a psychiatric hospital. Edward St. Aubyn is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published November 1, 2017. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode, “Th’ Untented Woundings of a Father’s Curse,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Esther French is the web producer. We had help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquardt at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California and Paul Reuest at Argot Studios in New York.