Shakespeare LOL: All Mirth and No Matter
"I was born to speak all mirth and no matter." (Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1.323) Let's face it: Modern audiences sometimes go from roaring with laughter to scratching their heads when it comes to enj...
20 Mar 201527min
Shakespeare in Translation
"Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated!" (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3.1.120-121) What happens when Shakespeare’s work is translated into foreign languages? Is it still Shakespeare? Or ...
20 Mar 201524min
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. ...
20 Mar 201514min
Shakespeare Outdoors
"Under the greenwood tree / Who loves to lie with me / And turn his merry note / Unto the sweet bird’s throat, / Come hither, come hither, come hither. / Here shall he see / No enemy / But winter and ...
20 Mar 201531min
In Search of the Real Richard III
"I, that am rudely stamped..." (Richard III, 1.1.16) Shakespeare not only talked about his own times; he also wrote history plays that showed us the past—though it was a past filtered through the pol...
20 Mar 201529min
Actresses on Shakespeare
"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players." (As You Like It, 2.7.146-147) In Shakespeare's time, only men appeared on stage, with teenage boys playing the women's parts. Tod...
20 Mar 201520min
The Robben Island Shakespeare
While Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on South Africa's Robben Island, one of the other political prisoners managed to retain a copy of Shakespeare's complete works, which was secretly circulated thro...
20 Mar 201518min
Designing Shakespeare
“And I hope here is a play fitted.” —A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1.2.63) There's an old Broadway saying (sometimes attributed to Richard Rodgers) that "No one ever walked out of a theater humming the ...
25 Feb 201518min
