Shakespeare & Beyond

Some of the most engrossing illustrations of Shakespeare’s rarely performed tragedy come from Wyndham Lewis, an early 20th-century artist who, like Timon, was a misanthrope.

Read this Q&A with Tracy Chevalier about her new novel New Boy, which retells the story of Shakespeare’s Othello and is the latest book in the Hogarth Shakespeare series.

In the whole history of Shakespeare in American life, perhaps the most shocking single fact is that 22 or more people once died as a result of a riot in New York over the correct theatrical interpretation of Macbeth.

It’s been 60 years since Duke Ellington recorded Such Sweet Thunder, a jazz suite based on Shakespeare’s plays. Eleven songs are linked to Shakespearean characters like Othello and Lady Macbeth, and the final number is a tribute to Shakespeare himself.

To commemorate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth in 2014, Shakespeare’s Globe in London sent a group of actors on a two-year tour to perform Hamlet all around the world. Dominic Dromgoole, the Globe’s artistic director who directed this traveling…

Every month, we share a snapshot of Shakespeare in performance around America. See what’s on this April.

Known for his complex imaginary contraptions, W. Heath Robinson also produced exquisite illustrations for editions of Shakespeare’s works.

Francine Segan, a food historian with a taste for the Renaissance, adapts a 1610 handwritten recipe for rose cakes from a recipe book that’s part of the Folger collection.

Henry Altemus’ magnificently miniature copy of “The Children’s Shakespeare” by Edith Nesbit is the Folger’s smallest Shakespeare edition. The title page’s portrait of Shakespeare is only six millimeters long. Like the book’s text, it is not discernible to the naked…

Shakespeare characters love talking about their ducats, which were commonly used coins in Shakespeare’s day. Can you match the money quote to the play it comes from?

While Shakespeare musicals borrowed plots, characters, and situations from England’s best-known poet, they remained essentially “American.”

Born Ada Crehan in Limerick, Ireland, Ada Rehan arrived in Brooklyn with her family at age five. Her big break came in the late 1870s, when theater manager Augustin Daly hired her for his New York company.