Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari-Cox

Long before his iconic portrayal of Logan Roy in Succession, Brian Cox trod the boards as a Shakespearean actor. For over 50 years, Cox has made his mark on both stage a

The Complete Life of William Shakespeare, with Paul Menzer

How do you write a “complete” life of Shakespeare when very little complete information about his life exists? Four centuries after Shakespeare’s death, the legends that

The Bard in the Borderlands

In 1597, the first published edition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet rolled off the printing press. Only a year later, the Spanish colony of Santa Fe was established. W

Shakespeare and the Law, with Len Niehoff

If you were Hamlet’s lawyer, would you advise he plead not guilty by reason of insanity? Would you consider his accidental slaying of Polonius to be murder or manslaughte

Stratford Festival's Antoni Cimolino

Near the end of The Tempest, Prospero vows to retire from practicing the “rough magic” he has mastered, to break his magical staff and drown his spellbooks. After 14 seas

Shakespeare and Stephen King, with Caroline Bicks

Imagine being able to dig through Shakespeare’s manuscripts and ask him about his writing process. Did King Lear survive in the first draft? What if Hamlet originally sai

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 p

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. Shake

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 g

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

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

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, aud

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 spec

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 th

Adjoa Andoh on Shakespeare

Known to many as Lady Danbury in Netflix’s Bridgerton, Adjoa Andoh, MBE, is also a celebrated Shakespearean actor and director. Across her career, Andoh has returned to

Thinking Through Shakespeare, with David Womersley

Many readers turn to Shakespeare for the beauty of his language or the power of his stories. But in Thinking Through Shakespeare, Oxford scholar David Womersley suggests

The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

When you visit a new city, one of your first stops might be a museum. It turns out that public art galleries are largely an 18th-century invention. In London in 1789, pub

Whitney White and Shakespeare

Whitney White is a theatrical powerhouse. A director, writer, actor, and musician, White’s work has been seen on Broadway, Off Broadway, and at major institutions includi

Shakespeare and Mathematics

Many Shakespeare fans don’t think of themselves as “math people.” They’re theater kids, poetry lovers, bookworms, right? But in Shakespeare’s world, math and literature w

Spain's Golden Age of Theater

While Shakespeare was reshaping English drama, a parallel theatrical revolution was unfolding in Spain. During the Spanish Golden Age, playwright Lope de Vega pioneered t