Mary Zimmerman on Adapting Ovid and Directing Shakespeare
Theater-maker Mary Zimmerman joins us on our podcast to talk about creating her award-winning adaptation of Metamorphoses.
Eddie Izzard on Performing Hamlet Solo
Legendary comedian and actor Eddie Izzard tells us about her one-actor performance of Hamlet.
Robert O'Hara on Directing Richard III
The award-winning director tells us what it’s like to direct Shakespeare in the Park. Spoiler: It’s a whirlwind.
Fiona Ritchie on Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble
We talk to scholar Fiona Ritchie, whose new book, Shakespeare in the Theatre: Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble, details their rise to fame.
Ian McKellen on Richard III, Macbeth, and Gandalf
Sir Ian McKellen tells us about some of his most famous roles: playing Macbeth opposite Dame Judi Dench, King Richard III with a screenplay he co-wrote, and Gandalf the Grey in The Lord of the Rings films.
Ian McKellen on Playing Hamlet
Sir Ian McKellen played Hamlet in his thirties, and again in his eighties. He gives us his take on the Melancholy Dane.
John Adams Gives Antony and Cleopatra the Operatic Treatment
Adams talks with host Barbara Bogaev about how he turned a five-act play into a two-act opera—which scenes got the hook, new lines written in the style of the Bard, and what Shakespeare may have thought of the play’s characters.
Black Women Shakespeareans, 1821 – 1960, with Joyce Green MacDonald
Joyce Green MacDonald shares the history of four Black women Shakespeareans who took to the American stage from 1821 – 1960: The African Grove Theatre’s “Miss Welsh,” Henrietta Vinton Davis, Adrienne McNeil Herndon, and Jane White.
Richard II on the Radio
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 151 The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to theater in the United States. Broadway and regional theaters are dark, and Shakespeare festivals across the country have cancelled their seasons. So it wasn’t a surprise when The Public…
Kenny Leon on Much Ado About Nothing
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 133 Director Kenny Leon’s production of Much Ado About Nothing mesmerized audiences during the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park last summer. Now, you can watch this exuberant, sassy, and political performance, starring Orange is the New Black’s…
Paterson Joseph: Julius Caesar and Me
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 98 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, recently wrote a book about the experience called Julius Caesar…
The Royal Shakespeare Company's Digital Tempest
Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 75 Twenty-first-century wizardry meets the seventeenth-century kind in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Tempest with digital effects created by The Imaginarium, a performance-capture company that’s best known for movie and video game animations. This production…