Whenever Shakespeare’s plays are performed, there are always legends and stories which come up right along with them. We have Macbeth and the Scottish Play, as well as Romeo and Juliet and the famous misconstrued couplet in the final scene.

Over the years, some of these stories have grown into famous anecdotes that no one is really sure where they started. No one, at least, except Paul Menzer. This week at That Shakespeare Life, we are going to sit down with Paul Menzer, professor at Mary Baldwin University, to talk about the truth behind the legends connecting to Shakespeare’s plays, Dr. Menzer is an expert on this particular topic because he literally wrote the book called Anecdotal Shakespeare. In this episode, I’ll be asking Dr. Menzer about :

>>Macbeth and why The Scottish Play became such an important theater legend.

>>We’ll talk about Cymbeline and why smaller plays lack such strong anecdotes, and

>>you’ll hear a story about Richard Burbage which has spanned the centuries attaching itself to actors playing Richard III for centuries.