Shakespeare & Beyond

Photo credit: Brittany Diliberto, Bee Two Sweet Today, turkey and stuffing are central fare on the holiday table. But turkeys weren’t even known in England until the 1520s, when they were introduced by explorers returning from the Americas. Turkey was…

Did you know that the Pilgrims have a presence in the church where William Shakespeare was baptized and buried? A stained glass window that bears the inscription, “The Gift of America to Shakespeare’s Church,” shows the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth…

Leah Crocetto (Desdemona) and Russell Thomas (Otello) in WNO’s Otello. Photo by Scott Suchman. I find it fascinating that Verdi’s last two operas were both inspired by Shakespeare: Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893), yet they are very different in story,…

In Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio grabs a leg of roast mutton and throws it to the ground. Doing so, he exclaims, “it engenders choler, planteth anger,/ And better ‘twere that both of us did fast.” As food…

Timothée Chalamet (Hal) in The King, 2019. IMDB One of Shakespeare’s most moving love triangles isn’t romantic, it’s filial. The tension between Prince Hal and his two father figures — King Henry IV and Sir John Falstaff — fuels both…

Just in time for Halloween, we rank the five spookiest ghosts in Shakespeare’s plays.

What are the connections between traditional folktales and Shakespeare’s plays? Charlotte Artese, an English professor at Agnes Scott College in Georgia, sets out to explore these folktale sources in a new anthology of stories, Shakespeare and the Folktale, published October…

In Shakespeare’s plays, we find scenes that take place in taverns and alehouses – but no coffee shops – and characters who drink ale and wine – but not what we now think of as the quintessential English beverage: tea.…

Every month, we check in with our theater partners across the United States to see what’s onstage. Here’s a look at Shakespeare in October.

Shakespeare Festival St. Louis brings together dancers, actors, and a 15-piece jazz band for a performance of Duke Ellington’s “Such Sweet Thunder.”

Desdemona and Emilia’s friendship inspires resistance and the courage to speak the truth, resulting in Iago’s exposure and Desdemona’s exoneration.

The Utah Shakespeare Festival has a fresh take on Hamlet and Ophelia’s relationship, inspired by Artistic Collaborator Jerry Murdock.