Shakespeare in the world
"Painter’s art": Biofictional perspectives on Shakespeare
Austin Tichenor as William Shakespeare in William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged), Folger Theatre, 2016. Photo by Teresa Wood. Depictions of William Shakespeare in fictional works are animated by the same impulse behind fanfiction — to fill in the…
“Therefore we marvel”: WandaVision’s Shakespearean echoes
Austin Tichenor reflects on the tension the WandaVision series creates between character and genre, reminding him of Shakespeare’s plays.
“Eventful history:” The Shakespearean success of The Crown
“It’s no wonder that The Crown — nominated for a record six Golden Globes in this Sunday’s annual awards ceremony — is so successful and popular,” writes Austin Tichenor. “Its depiction of an English monarch struggling to rule Britain while…
To be or not to be your valentine: Shakespearean expressions of love
Shakespeare quotes can seem like good choices for Valentine’s Day cards, but his tales of love are nuanced and complicated.
Our revels now are ended: Reflections on the Shakespeare 2020 Project
Shakespeare & Beyond readers may remember author Ian Doescher’s announcement here in December 2019 that he would be reading through all of Shakespeare’s works in 2020, inviting anyone interested to join him. Many of our readers said yes! We asked…
Razing the Theatre, raising the Globe
The story of the Globe Theatre’s beginnings is one of intrigue, legal hairsplitting, holiday opportunity, and the disassembly of another playhouse.
The post-modern peregrinations of Pericles
The story of Pericles continues to be retold by twenty-first century novelists, among them Mark Haddon, in The Porpoise (2019), and Ali Smith, in Spring (2019), the penultimate book in her “Seasonal Quartet.”
What theater makers learned from 2020
We asked some of our Shakespeare theater partners what the events of 2020 had illuminated for them about Shakespeare and theater.
William Shakespeare: International man of mystery
Austin Tichenor writes about how the lack of biographical details about Shakespeare’s life leaves his audience always wanting more.
Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Modern perfumes and the Myth of the Tudors
Does a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Can we capture the perfumes of the past to savor in the present? This blog post looks at two 21st-century perfumes that try to market their scents by evoking early…
Mangled glory: Fact and (mostly) fiction in Shakespeare’s history plays
Austin Tichenor writes about theater’s limitations as a historical record, given its dramatic needs and narrative imperatives.
“Jumping o’er times:” Visiting great Shakespeare performances past
Cyril Walter Hodges. The fire at the Globe, 1613 (illustration for: Shakespeare’s Theatre, 1964). Folger Shakespeare Library. While William Shakespeare never wrote what we might think of as a science-fiction play, he knew intuitively that the theatre — more…