l-r: Rex Daugherty (Tybalt), Aaron Bliden (Benvolio), and Brad Koed (Mercutio) in Romeo and Juliet, directed by Aaron Posner, Folger Theatre (2013). Photo by Teresa Wood.
We covered a lot in our podcast about Shakespeare this year, from the popular William Shakespeare’s Star Wars adaptation to the Bard’s legacy in Hong Kong and the Caribbean to the evolution of stage design for Shakespeare’s plays.
1. Myths About Shakespeare
Even if you’re not a Shakespeare scholar, there are things you have learned about Shakespeare and his plays throughout your life – that it’s bad luck to say the name of “the Scottish play” or that Shakespeare hated his wife. Are any of these stories true? And whether they are or not, what do they tell us about previous eras, and our own?
2. Elizabethan Street Fighting
From the duels in Romeo and Juliet to a brutal mob in Julius Caesar, street fighting transforms several of Shakespeare’s plays. How much, though, does it reflect (or differ from) the mean streets of his day?
3. Music for Shakespeare’s Lyrics
The majority of Shakespeare’s plays call for singing — sometimes it’s part of the action, sometimes it seems to spring out of nowhere. And while the lyrics to the songs appear to have always been a part of the text, the musical notes for those lyrics have been lost over the years. Over four centuries of staging Shakespeare, directors have explored different approaches to filling in these musical gaps.
4. Recounting Shakespeare’s Life
5. The Year of Lear
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Comments
The Folger’s decision to only distribute its podcasts through SoundCloud is vexing. I liked being able to listen through my customary podcast feed and manage the lectures on my device.
J. Fox — January 4, 2016
The Shakespeare Unlimited podcast is now on iTunes too! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/folger-shakespeare-library/id1082457631?mt=2
Esther French — March 7, 2016