Pop Sonnets (rebroadcast)
Here’s the assignment. Fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, with an a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g rhyme scheme. Now: add Taylor Swift. It’s astounding and gratifying that Shakespeare—a 450-year-old ...
21 Aug 201824min
Joe Papp and Shakespeare in the Park
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 wi...
7 Aug 201835min
Still Dreaming: Shakespeare with Seniors
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 ...
24 Juli 201832min
Elizabeth Norton: The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women
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 t...
10 Juli 201832min
Stephen Greenblatt on Shakespeare's Tyrants
“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, "Tyran...
26 Juni 201837min
Antioch Shakespeare Festival: John Lithgow, Robin Lithgow, and Tony Dallas
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 Shakespea...
12 Juni 201840min
Paterson Joseph: Julius Caesar and Me
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, recen...
29 Maj 201834min
Stephen Alford: London's Triumph
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, rocke...
15 Maj 201831min
