Shakespeare Anyone?

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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 consider how their influence may have shaped the writing and performance of Shakespeare's characters like Rosalind in As You Like It. We then look at the early modern English stage, where women were barred from performing, and examine the impact of John Lyly's Galatea on the plays and playwrights of the era. Finally, we look at the documented reality of life in the Boys' Companies of Shakespeare's time, and what that history tells us about the young actors who brought these performances to life.

Content warning: this episode contains brief mentions of exploitation of children. Please listen with care.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

Brown, Pamela Allen. "'Cattle of This Colour': Boying the Diva in 'As You Like It.'" Early Theatre, vol. 15, no. 1, 2012, pp. 145–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43499607. Accessed 4 Oct. 2026.

Tosh, Will. Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare. Sceptre, 2025.

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 works with actors to bring Shakespeare's language to life, and how she found her way into this specialized corner of theatre. We also talk about how she decided to start sharing Shakespeare tips on social media and built a thriving community on Instagram as @ShakespearewithEmily. Last but not least, we ask her the big question: if she could teach everyone in the world one thing about Shakespeare, what would it be?

About Emily Jenkins

Emily Jenkins is Text Practitioner for Shakespeare's Globe Higher Education and a leading Shakespeare and acting coach for stage and screen. Since 2012 she has worked at the Globe exploring practical, text-led approaches to Shakespeare's plays with students and professionals alike. Alongside this work, Emily is multi-award-winning playwright and theatre director. She has won two Fringe First awards, and has had her work produced and performed in London's West End. She regularly posts Shakespeare tips on instagram as ShakespearewithEmily and has build a strong community of over 22 thousand followers.

Emily's website includes free Shakespeare acting resources, text guides, all the plays and apocrypha, and monologue finder that allows you to search for every speech in Shakespeare:

https://emilyjenkins.studio/shakespeare https://emilyjenkins.studio/guides

Emily has also created a 'Foundational verse' course. In 16 online videos, Emily talks you through, step-by-step Shakespeare's most popular form of verse, iambic pentameter, the clues it gives us and how it can support you as an actor. Find out more at https://emilyjenkins.studio/learn-shakespeare.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

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 impacted the real Forest of Arden near Shakespeare's hometown. We look at how shifting agricultural practices in Shakespeare's England shape the play's depiction of land, labor, and pastoral life in the Forest of Arden. We then explore the play's connection to the enclosure riots of the period, and what Shakespeare's fictional forest reveals about real anxieties over land rights, common land, and rural unrest in early modern England.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

Brokaw, Katherine Steele, and Elizabeth Freestone. Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet. Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Martin, Randall. " Land-Uses and Convertible Husbandry in As You Like It." Shakespeare and Ecology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2015, pp. 56–77.

Wilson, Richard. "'Like the Old Robin Hood': 'As You Like It' and the Enclosure Riots." Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 1, 1992, pp. 1–19. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2870900. Accessed 27 Aug. 2026.

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's time?

We look at Shrovetide's origins as the last hurrah before the fasting and restraint of Lent to the customs that came to define it: feasting, football, cockfighting, pancakes, and festivals. We also look at where Shrovetide turns up in Shakespeare and other literature of the early modern period.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

Brears, Peter C. D. Cooking and Dining in Tudor and Early Stuart England. Prospect Books, 2015.

Foster, Pamela. "Shrove Tuesday and the British Pancake Tradition: From Mrs. Patmore's Kitchen to Your Table." Downton Abbey Cooks, 16 Feb. 2026, downtonabbeycooks.com/why-do-we-have-pancakes-on-shrove-tuesday/.

Hutton, Ronald. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press, 2011.

Olney Pancake Race, Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul, Olney, 2026, olneypancakerace.org/.

Teysko, Heather. " From Pancakes to Fasting: Shrovetide and Lent in Tudor England." History and Coffee, YouTube, 11 Feb. 2026, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJaT3qZy_Y.

"Why Do We Eat Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday?" English Heritage, 2026, www.english-heritage.org.uk/members-area/kids/kids-rule-makes-and-bakes/pancakes-shrove-tuesday/.

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 of the genre, subverts some of the negative stereotypes about country life that were common in the pastoral tradition, and what that suggests about his own relationship to the genre.

We then turn to exploring further evidence that suggests that the play was first performed at court on Shrovetide in 1599 (so much more than just the explaining the pancake joke!), and we consider what a court performance on this date would have meant for both the players staging it and the audience watching it.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

Cirillo, Albert R. "As You Like It: Pastoralism Gone Awry." ELH, vol. 38, no. 1, 1971, pp. 19–39. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2872361. Accessed 3 Aug. 2026.

Dusinberre, Juliet. "Pancakes and a Date for 'As You like It.'" Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 4, 2003, pp. 371–405. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3844055. Accessed 29 July 2026.

Kronenfeld, Judy Z. "Social Rank and the Pastoral Ideals of As You Like It." Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3, 1978, pp. 333–48. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2869144. Accessed 29 July 2026.

Samuk, Tristan. "Satire and the Aesthetic in As You Like It." Renaissance Drama, vol. 43, no. 2, 2015, pp. 117–42. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/683106. Accessed 3 Aug. 2026.

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 culture influenced the music of Shakespeare's plays. We'll also explain how scholars and historians have pieced together bits and pieces of information to discover what we know about which instruments were popular and what the popular music of Shakespeare's day sounded like.

We'll also dive into the logistics of music in a theatrical performance and how musicians and actors would bring these songs to life in the original productions of Shakespeare's plays.

Looking for the image of the virginal/spinet we mention? Here you go!

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

Bogaev, Barbara, interviewer. Christopher Marsh and Angela McShane, guests. "Top Pop Songs of the 1600s." Shakespeare Unlimited. Episode 259. Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/top-pop-songs-of-the-1600s/. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Cash, Cassidy, host. "Episode 33: Music in Shakespeare's Plays with Mary Springfels." That Shakespeare Life. episode 33, https://www.cassidycash.com/ep33/. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Cash, Cassidy, host. "Ep 96: Catherine Loomis and Music on Shakespeare's Stage." That Shakespeare Life. episode 96, https://www.cassidycash.com/ep-96-catherine-loomis-and-music-on-shakespeares-stage/. Accessed 26 July 2026.

Colley, John Scott. "Music in the Elizabethan Private Theatres." The Yearbook of English Studies, vol. 4, 1974, pp. 62–69. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3506682. Accessed 26 July 2026. Munro, Lucy, ' Music and Sound', in Richard Dutton (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre (2011; online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Sept. 2012), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199697861.013.0033, accessed 25 July 2026. Phillips, James E. "The Vocal Songs in the Plays of Shakespeare. A Critical History. Peter J. Seng." Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 3, 1968, pp. 359-361. Chicago Journals, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/2859441. Accessed 26 July 2026. Sheir, Rebecca, host. Ross W. Duffin, guest. "Music in Shakespeare." Shakespeare Unlimited. Episode 11. Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/music-in-shakespeare/. Accessed 26 July 2026.

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 modern England. This sets the stage for us to explore what makes Touchstone stand apart from the rest of Shakespeare's fools. We then dig into how Touchstone functions less as pure comic relief and more as a fun-house mirror for the play itself, parodying the romantic entanglements and pastoral fantasies unfolding around him. Finally, we consider the meaning behind his name and what it reveals about his behavior throughout the play and what it means to be a touchstone in the Forest of Arden.

And a special note: this is our 150th episode! Thank you for everyone who has listened and supported us along the way!

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

BELL, ROBERT H. "Motley to the View: The Shakespearean Performance of Folly." Southwest Review, vol. 95, no. 1/2, 2010, pp. 44–62. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43473037. Accessed 10 July 2026.

Frail, David. "To the Point of Folly: Touchstone's Function in 'As You like It.'" The Massachusetts Review, vol. 22, no. 4, 1981, pp. 695–717. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25089211. Accessed 8 July 2026.

Goldsmith, Robert Hillis. "Touchstone: Critic in Motley." PMLA, vol. 68, no. 4, 1953, pp. 884–95. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/459804. Accessed 8 July 2026.

Weindling, Lauren. "'I Do Play the Touch': Touchstone and Testing in As You Like It." Studies in Philology, vol. 121, no. 1, 2024, pp. 135–62. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27311436. Accessed 11 July 2026.

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 later episodes. Think about it like As You Like It 101!

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Edited by Juliet Dusinberre, Arden Shakespeare, 2006.

SparkNotes Editors. "As You Like It" SparkNotes.com, SparkNotes LLC, 2005, https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/asyoulikeit/

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.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Special thanks to Nat Yonce for editing this episode.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.

Works referenced:

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. Edited by Juliet Dusinberre. Arden Shakespeare, 2006.

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. Join us as we get to know the brain behind Good Tickle Brain.

You can find Mya's comics and merchandise at goodticklebrain.com.

About Mya Lixian Gosling

Mya Lixian Gosling (she/her) is the author and artist of Good Tickle Brain, the world's foremost (and possibly only) stick-figure Shakespeare webcomic. Since 2013, Good Tickle Brain has been entertaining and subversively educating people with Shakespeare-related comics, including full-length play adaptations, extremely short and reductive summaries, song parodies, pop culture mash-ups, infographics, and much more. Mya thinks Shakespeare is super fun, and wants other people to also think that Shakespeare is super fun.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

For updates:

• Join our email list
• Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod
• Visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com

Support the podcast:

• Become a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone
• Buy us a coffee
• Bookshop.org: Since 2020, Bookshop.org has raised more than $38 million for independent bookstores. Shop our Shakespeare Anyone? storefront to find books featured on the podcast, books by our guests, and other Shakespeare-related books and gifts. Every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
• Libro.fm: Libro.fm makes it possible to purchase audiobooks through your local bookshop of choice. Use our link for 2 free audiobooks when you sign up for a new Libro.fm membership using our link.

Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree.