Bootleg Shakespeare is not your typical night at the theater: The actors show up on the day of the performance with only their lines memorized; after a few hours of rehearsals, the audience arrives. It’s a summer theater tradition for Washington’s Taffety Punk Theatre Company, which chooses a different Shakespeare play each time. This summer’s… Continue Reading »
Posts By: Shakespeare & Beyond
Here in This Island We Arrived: Shakespeare and Belonging in Immigrant New York is a 2019 book from Elisabeth H. Kinsley that explores Shakespeare performance in late 19th- and early 20-century Manhattan during a time of profound demographic change, when New York City’s foreign-born population grew from under half a million in 1880 to almost… Continue Reading »
In choosing which Shakespeare play to translate for the Play on! project, playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil let herself be influenced by dramaturg Liz Engelman, who was attracted to the themes of Measure for Measure and their resonance in today’s world. Continuing our series of Q&As with Play on! playwrights, Kapil shares about her process for… Continue Reading »
What is Shakespeare’s shortest play? Which female character has the most lines? Test your Shakespeare knowledge with this trivia quiz.
Shakespeare scholar Emma Smith takes 20 chapters to discuss 20 different Shakespeare plays in her new book This Is Shakespeare, offering insights on key characters, plot twists, and performance challenges. The excerpt below, which focuses on the character of Falstaff and his physical description, comes from the chapter on 1 Henry IV, the play where… Continue Reading »
This new book by Andrew McConnell Stott is about David Garrick and the Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Nora Titone, author of a book on Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth, shares highlights from the Folger’s Booth collection.
These recent additions to the Folger collection relate to a range of early Shakespeare films that represented important firsts, won awards, and witnessed the transition from silent films to “talkies.”
Read an excerpt from “The Girl on the Balcony: Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo and Juliet,” a memoir by the star of Franco Zeffirelli’s classic film.
Whether you’re giving a valentine to a sweetheart or a friend, why not say it with Shakespeare? See beautifully illustrated quotes for Valentine’s Day.
