Inspired by Shakespeare

Isabelle Schuler tells us about her new novel, Queen Hereafter.

Hit musical & Juliet combines Romeo and Juliet with the songs of pop hitmaker Max Martin. Its writer, Schitt’s Creek writer and executive producer David West Read, tells us about how the idea came to him while he was concussed.

Lolita Chakrabarti on writing the Shakespeare family, puppet kestrels, Ira Aldridge, and adapting Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet for the stage.

Theater-maker and past Folger Fellow Debra Ann Byrd tells us about her solo show.

Talene Monahon’s play Jane Anger was inspired by the pandemic and a radical 16th-century proto-feminist pamphlet.

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.

Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 191 A new opera version of Hamlet is onstage at New York’s Metropolitan Opera through June 9. Composer Brett Dean and librettist Matthew Jocelyn talk with host Barbara Bogaev about adapting the texts of the earliest editions…

We talk with Madeline Sayet about growing up Mohegan in Connecticut, her evolving relationship with Shakespeare today, and what it means to belong in a complicated world.

Shakespeare Unlimited:Episode 131 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time author Mark Haddon’s books take twists and turns that sometimes seem to only make sense in the context of his stories. Shakespeare’s  Pericles takes twists and turns that…

Shakespeare Unlimited: Episode 69 You can find Shakespeare in all sorts of places, including the Fox TV series Empire. The story of an aging ruler – in this case the head of a hip-hop music dynasty – who sets his…

Luke Skywalker strikes an iconic Hamlet pose in this illustration from the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series. Credit Nicolas Delort. Courtesy Quirk Books. Shakespeare and Star Wars would appear to have very little in common. Or at least they did,…

On his very popular Tumblr, Pop Sonnets, Erik Didriksen takes hit songs and rewrites them as Shakespearean sonnets. For example, Beyoncé’s “If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it” becomes “If truly you did wish…