That Shakespeare Life

The character of Prospero in The Tempest is full of magic, superstition, and the question for the audience about whether Prospero is a good man or a selfish and greedy villain. Then of course, we have to ask, was he even a real man at all, or something supernatural? When The Tempest was first staged, it was done so before King James I at a celebration for All Hallow's Day in 1611. As King James wa...

William Shakespeare's life overlapped some of the most extraordinary scientific discoveries in human history. Modern thought was developing the idea of a round Earth, the sun being the center of the universe, and scientific minds like Galileo, Thomas Digges, and Tycho Brahe, were utilizing then cutting edge technology like the telescope to transform the way we thought about the universe and our pl...

Halloween is coming up a few days from now, and it seems like a good opportunity to explore the origins to the holiday, which began as a religious celebration. Of course, since then it's grown into a fun night of candy and costumes for us here in the US, but for William Shakespeare, ghouls, ghosts, and witches had real life implications. While king of Scotland, James VI became convinced witchcraft...

From the Chandos portrait to first folio engraving, all of our visual depictions of William Shakespeare show him with a full face beard. Was this grooming style typical for Elizabethans or was William Shakespeare stepping outside the norm with his choice of facial hair? We think of Shakespeare as a hipster artist guy today, but what did the Elizabethans think about Shakespeare's Beard?

When we think about William Shakespeare, we almost synonymously think of him holding a quill pen, or furiously scratching away on a piece of parchment with ink on his hands creating a masterpiece. When it comes to the history of writing, pens in particular, and even references to writing that happens inside Shakespeare's plays, the world of writing instruments in Shakespeare's lifetime was really...

Between 1590 and 1642, there were about twenty companies of actors in London and only 4-5 of them played in London proper at one time. In addition to these companies, there were more than a hundred provincial troupes. The fact that there were many more provincial troupes than city-playing companies demonstrates that for William Shakespeare's lifetime, it was actually the purpose built theater whic...

For years, historians have ruminated on the state of William Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, and the financial troubles that were speculated to have caused the bard to leave Grammar School before graduation around age 14. Without any real substantial evidence to confirm or deny what actually happened to John Shakespeare, we have been left to wonder what, if any impact, these troubles had o...

One of the most referenced sports in the plays of William Shakespeare is that of falconry. From hoodwinked to wrapped around your little finger, many of the colloquialisms we use to describe human relationships today can be attributed to Shakespeare, who learned them from the sport of falconry. Falconry is the sport that takes large birds of prey, like falcons or hawks, and catches food which is k...

Many British historians will recognize the Essex Rebellion as a famous event, but less well known is the almost pivotal role in that uprising that was played by William Shakespeare. Robert Devereux was the 2nd Earl of Essex and was, in addition to being the Queen's favorite, also one of Shakespeare's most notable patrons. After a ghastly display of disrespect to the Queen in public, along with man...

When we see a Shakespeare play, we take for granted just how much work, and history, goes into staging the fight scenes. Whether it's Hamlet and Laertes dueling it out, or the legions of armies storming the stage in the Battle of Agincourt, the fights that Shakespeare put on stage are the secret sauce that helps seal the deal on Shakespeare's plays. Our guide this week into the real life of Willia...

Whether it was beer, ale, tobacco, or other plant based stimulants, almost every man and woman in 16th century London from the brothel to the royal court had an opinion on, and often tried, intoxicants. Substances like tobacco, ale, beer, and even chocolate were being brought to England for the first time by explorers who were travelling to new worlds and returning with samples of new and exciting...

Rivals in life,and in legacy, Ben Jonson is a playwright who gave Shakespeare a run for his money. Some of Ben Jonson's extravagancy on the stage and creativity as an artist is even said to have influenced how Shakespeare chose to stage some of his own plays, with the two men being linked in anecdote after anecdote when you study history. Obviously aquaintances, colleagues, and contemporaries, but...

William Shakespeare's oldest daughter, Susanna, married Dr. John Hall when she was 24 years old. John was a faithful son in law to William Shakespeare, and as a medical doctor in Stratford had a unique look at what it was like to live and work in a small town of the 16th century England. John Hall's surviving case books help Shakespeare historians piece together many realities about Shakespeare's...

In Shakespeare's play, Two Gentlemen of Verona, one character has a pet dog. The dog's name is Crab. The part in the play is very small, but remains included by Shakespeare, which leads to some interesting questions about animals and their role in Shakespeare's history. He must have included Crab strategically, but why? Animals in history are connected mostly to farming, agriculture, and perhaps d...

We take it for granted that Shakespeare's theater was similar to ours, when in fact, the experience of stepping inside The Globe or other Elizabethan playhouses was quite different for Shakespeare than for us today.  To take us behind the curtain and explore the inside of The Globe theater, Richard Dutton is our guide today, helping explore the sights, sounds, and smells inside a real Elizabethan...

Shakespeare is often portrayed wearing bright purple poofy pumpkin pants, characteristic both of the time period and our impression of William. Today, Ninya Mikhaila, a professional historical costumer, joins us to share her experiences of recreating 17th century clothing, and tell us all about how William Shakespeare would have dressed.

Douglas joins us today to discuss marketing in the 16th century. With new plays performed as often as every afternoon, and a large portion of his target audience being illiterate, how did Shakespeare fill seats and manage to sell enough tickets to stay in business?  Douglas Bruster is a professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. His research centers on Shakespeare, drama, and liter...

Barbara Traister is the author of  The Notorious Astrological Physician of London , and  Heavenly Necromancers: The Magician in English Renaissance Drama , as well as former Professor of English at Lehigh University. She joins us today to look at some of Shakespeare's examples of medicine depicted in his plays and explore where Shakespeare got it right, and some of the hidden messages we can disco...

Glyn Jones joins us today to talk about kitchen gardens and estate gardens that impacted Shakespeare. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust maintains 5 gardens thought to have been part of William Shakespeare's home in Stratford and today Glyn Jones is going to help us explore whether or not Shakespeare had a garden himself, what purpose a garden might have served a playwright, and what sort of things woul...

Does William Shakespeare belong in the theater and not the literature department? Nigel Wood is a Professor of Literature at Loughborough University, specializing in early modern literature and the staging of dramatic texts. He joins us today to discuss the evolution of Shakespeare's plays as a result of reading what was intended to be performed. I will be asking Nigel about the significance of st...

Hazel Forsyth, Senior Curator of the Medieval and Post-Medieval Collections at the Museum of London, joins us today  to discuss a 2009 archeological find done by the Museum of London where they discovered, among other evidence of theater life in the 17th century, a set of period shoes near the site of the old Rose Theater, dating to within Shakespeare's lifetime. While the shoes themselves have no...

Grace Tiffany is a successful novelist, author, and professor of Shakespeare at Western Michigan University. Her first novel, My Father Had a Daughter , was published in 2003, and is a fictional tale about the life of Shakespeare's second daughter Judith. While fictional, the book brings the historical facts about Judith Quiney to life on the pages of her book. Since her debut novel, Grace has com...

Today's guest knows better than most that when you study Shakespeare, you almost synonymously study 17th century theater. Ben Crystal is an actor, writer, producer, adventurer & explorer of original practices in Shakespeare, and was the Artistic Director at Passion in Practice, an original practice based theatre company specializing in performances that rework the speech, rehearsal techniques, and...

Called "One of the most learned and devoted of Shakespeareans," by Harold Bloom, Dr. David Bevington is an American literary scholar who specializes in British drama of the Renaissance, and has edited and introduced the complete works of William Shakespeare in both the 29-volume, Bantam Classics paperback editions and the single-volume Longman edition. Dr. Bevington remains the only living scholar...

In this week's episode, we talk with Pauline Montagna about the focus of an entire chapter in her latest book, Not Wisely But Too Well which makes the claim that Edward Alleyn, and not Shakespeare, was the upstart crow insulted famously by Robert Greene. Alleyn was a rival actr competing in the 16th century with Richard Burbage, Shakespeare's lead performer. Pauline joins us today to unpack her re...