Shakespeare Anyone?

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this mini episode, we sit down with Katherine Steele Brokaw and Elizabeth Freestone, authors of  Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet , to talk about their work producing ecological Shakespeare. We discuss what it means to approach Shakes...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we look at the women and boys whose performances shaped the depiction of women on Shakespeare's stage. We start in Italy, discussing the real actresses of the commedia dell'arte companies who originated the "diva" archetype, and consi...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we sit down with Emily Jenkins, Text Practitioner for Shakespeare's Globe Higher Education and a leading Shakespeare and acting coach for stage and screen. We discuss what a text coach actually does in the rehearsal process, how she w...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we explore the ecology of Shakespeare's Forest of Arden and what the events of As You Like It might have meant to an early modern audience (and a certain playwright) living through real environmental and agricultural change that impac...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we are digging into the history of Shrovetide in early modern England. We've previously discussed Shrovetide as a possible date for the first production of As You Like It , but what did this holiday mean for the people of Shakespeare'...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we examine Shakespeare's As You Like It as a piece of satire, one that pokes fun at the pastoral romantic comedy genre and the pastoral ideals so popular in early modern English court. We look at how Shakespeare undermines the tropes...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this week's episode, we explore the role of music and songs in Shakespeare's plays. We look at how songs were woven into the fabric of early modern culture, from tavern ballads to church liturgies to courtly masques , and consider how this musical...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we turn our attention to Touchstone, the sharp-tongued clown who trades the court for the Forest of Arden. We begin by revisiting what we already know about fools in Shakespeare's plays and the real-life clowns and jesters of early mo...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. As we start off another one of Shakespeare's plays, we will first take a look at the themes, motifs,  and production history of As You Like It in this Stuff to Chew On episode. This will provide a basis for future conversations as we dive deeper in la...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. It's time for our twelfth play! Today we are starting our series on Shakespeare's  As You Like It  with a synopsis episode. In this episode, we will provide a detailed summary of the plot, breaking down the action of the play scene by scene.  Shakespe...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we are joined by Mya Lixian Gosling, the creator, author, and artist of the internet's favorite stick-figure Shakespeare webcomic, Good Tickle Brain. We chat with Mia about how Good Tickle Brain came to be and her creative process. Jo...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this wrap-up episode, we reflect on our exploration of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by watching and discussing three distinct productions. We start with Phyllida Lloyd's ground-breaking 2012 all-female production at Donmar Warehouse, which sets the...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we are joined by author and Shakespeare scholar, Caroline Bicks, to discuss her latest book, Monsters in the Archive: My Year of Fear with Stephen King . Caroline will share with us how Shakespeare some of Stephen King's most famous w...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we use Freyja Cox Jensen's Reading the Roman Republic in Early Modern England to explore how early modern readers encountered, studied, and understood ancient Rome, and what that means for how we read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Firs...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In anticipation of Earth Day and Shakespeare's birthday later this month, in this episode, we are joined by Katherine (Katie) Steele Brokaw to discuss how Shakespeare can be used as a tool to create conversations around ecological issues that impact o...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we bring together Michael Parenti's  The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to explore the real historical event at the heart of the play. Parenti reframes the traditiona...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you.  In this episode, we dig into one of the most dramatic scandals of Shakespeare's time: the rise and catastrophic fall of Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex. Court favorite, military hero, and ultimately, traitor, Essex had everything and managed to l...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In today's episode, we are exploring how Shakespeare depicts Julius Caesar's "falling sickness," commonly believed by historians and scholars to be epilepsy. First, we'll discuss how the play Julius Caesar can be read as a disability narrative and how...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar , Cassius argues that "Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." In this week's episode, we are exploring early modern ideas of f...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In Julius Caesar , Shakespeare repeatedly reminds us that Brutus is an honorable man. In this episode we will explore if this is true, how Shakespeare depicts both masculine honor and its early modern counterpart, feminine virtue, in the characters of...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. As we start off another one of Shakespeare's plays, we will first take a look at the themes, motifs,  and production history of Julius Caesar in this Stuff to Chew On episode. This will provide a basis for future conversations as we dive deeper in lat...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. It's time for our eleventh play! Today we are starting our series on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar with a synopsis episode. In this episode, we will provide a detailed summary of the plot, breaking down the action of the play scene by scene.  Shakespear...

Want to support the podcast?  Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. Back in 2021, we recorded our second ever wrap-up episode for our second play series:  Twelfth Night. We both watched two versions of Twelfth Night: Trevor Nunn's 1996 film and She's the Man, then we also each watched an additional version. Kourtney...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you.  At the end of each year, we revisit  the Shakespeare plays we covered over the past twelve months. We've gone back and re-read both Henry V and  The Tempest , and we will discuss what has changed in our readings of these plays after completing our re...

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. Each year, in recognition of the National Day of Mourning/Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, we examine how British colonialism is irrevocably intertwined with Shakespeare. Over the past four years, we explored this topic through close reading...