Marking the anniversary of actor Edwin Booth’s birth on November 13, 1833, we explore a stunning historical costume from the Folger collection: an embroidered-velvet tunic that Booth wore onstage as King Richard III.
Posts Tagged: Richard III
“My kingdom for a horse!” A titanic villain in Shakespeare’s history plays, Richard III departs the stage and this life at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Mark the battle’s anniversary with these posts and podcast episodes.
What did Richard III and his disability represent to Shakespeare’s original audiences? And how has this Shakespeare villain shaped the field of early modern disability studies today? Katherine Schaap Williams takes a closer look at these questions in the below excerpt from her recently published book, Unfixable Forms: Disability, Performance, and the Early Modern English… Continue Reading »
Richard III, act 5 scene 3, in the tent, Richard asleep, ghosts of persons he had murdered. Painted by J. Opie, R.A. ; engraved by W. Sharp. Published 1794. Folger Shakespeare Library. Nightmares and ominous dreams are used to great dramatic effect in plays such as Shakespeare’s Richard III. Act I of Shakespeare’s Richard… Continue Reading »
While the global population of European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) is stable, their numbers have been rapidly declining in the UK for decades, especially in rural areas. This has led to a huge upswell of conservation efforts as people try to protect the UK’s only spiny mammal, and one of these efforts is centered in Shakespeare’s… Continue Reading »
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 »
Artist Paul Glenshaw writes about drawing the bas-relief of Richard III by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building.
With a US audience of tens of millions in its TV release at the same time it was released in American theaters, Laurence Olivier’s film “Richard III” (1955) has left a lasting, sometimes hilarious, legacy in pop culture, from Peter Sellers’s lofty and amusing reading of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” in Olivier’s style to modern-day TV villains who speak directly to the camera and win us to their side.
Black actor J.A. Arneaux starred as the title character in the Astor Place Company’s production of Richard III and published his own 19th-century edition.
This is an excerpt from Yale professor Joseph Roach’s talk for the Shakespeare Anniversary Lecture Series at the Folger Shakespeare Library in October 2016. Listen to the full recording on SoundCloud. The most humble or even abject items of material culture—take stage properties, for instance—can speak eloquently about history, if we will only listen carefully… Continue Reading »
