Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited20 Mar 2015

Punk Rock Shakespeare

"Here will we sit and let the sounds of music / Creep in our ears" (The Merchant of Venice, 5.1.63-64) How can young people connect with Shakespeare? It's a question that confronts each generation. Members of Taffety Punk, a Washington, DC, theater company, have taken to heart the mission of bringing Shakespeare into the 21st century. Rebecca Sheir, host of our Shakespeare Unlimited series, talks with Taffety Punk founding member and Artistic Director Marcus Kyd about how he and a group of classically trained actors—who are also ex-punk rockers—are giving new meaning to the term "band of players." From Bootleg performances of Shakespeare's plays—rehearsed and staged in a day—to Riot Grrrls all-female Shakespeare, recordings of punk versions of Shakespeare's Sonnet 71 and Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech from ROMEO AND JULIET, and the Generator series of experimental works, Taffety Punk is defining Shakespeare for a new generation of theatergoers and theater makers. Marcus Kyd is a founding member and artistic director of Taffety Punk Theatre Company. Taffety Punk Theatre Company's mission is to establish a dynamic ensemble of actors, dancers, and musicians who ignite a public passion for theater by making the classical and the contemporary exciting, meaningful, and affordable. Taffety Punk received the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company at the 2008 Helen Hayes Awards. ---------------- From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul; Garland Scott, associate producer.

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Episoder(304)

Shakespeare's Margaret, with Charles O'Malley and Scott W. Stern

It’s been more than 400 years since she first appeared on stage, and she’s still controversial. Margaret of Anjou appears in not one, not two, but four of Shakespeare’s plays—Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and ...

14 Jul 35min

Scholars in Shakespeare, with Sean Keilen

Shakespeare famously never attended university. But not only has his work inspired generations of scholarship, his plays, too, are filled with scholarly characters. Shakespeare, it seems, took an inte...

30 Jun 35min

The Six Loves of James I, with Gareth Russell

“Elizabeth was king, now James is queen.” So went the joke circulating around London in the 17th century. While Elizabeth I became an icon for transgressing traditional gender roles, her successor is ...

16 Jun 40min

Shakespeare and the Red Scare, with Marjorie Garber

“Is he a Communist?” During a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing in 1938, Congressman Joe Starnes probed into the politics of a writer produced by the Federal Theatre Project. The playwrig...

2 Jun 32min

Jacob Ming-Trent on How Shakespeare Saved My Life

One small step into the wrong classroom becomes a giant leap into a new life as a Shakespearean actor. That’s how Jacob Ming-Trent tells it in his remarkable one-man tour-de-force, How Shakespeare Sav...

19 Mai 31min

The Shakespeare Ladies Club

A century after Shakespeare’s death, his words were in danger of being forgotten. While plays like King Lear and Othello still played to packed houses across England, audiences saw only the bowdlerize...

5 Mai 27min

The Translator's Art and Shakespeare, with Daniel Hahn

Is Shakespeare still Shakespeare even if every word is changed? While Shakespeare’s work is often hailed for its universality, its meter, metaphor, and wordplay pose special challenges for translators...

21 Apr 33min

The Improvised Shakespeare Company

What is it like to create a Shakespeare play that’s never been written—and will never be performed again? The Improvised Shakespeare Company is a long-running ensemble that performs entirely unscripte...

7 Apr 39min