Shakespeare's Shadows

As You Like It is often remembered for being a rom-com, but it’s also a family drama. Duke Senior (Rosalind’s father) is usurped by his brother Duke Frederick. One brother rules at court while the exiled brother builds a new life in the Forest of Arden.

In this episode — about not just one but two characters — we discuss why it is that Frederick banished his brother and then his niece, what makes As You Like It ripe for musical adaption, how to make sense of Duke Senior so eagerly returning to court after he was raving about life in the forest, and more.

Guests on this episode are:

• Jennifer Lines (she/her), who performed in multiple stagings (including at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.) of an As You Like It featuring Beatles music. This version of the play originated at Bard on the Beach in Vancouver, and Jennifer plays characters known in that version as Dame Senior and Dame Frances.

• Darius de Haas (he/him), who played Duke Senior in the 2017 Public Works world premiere of Shaina Taub’s As You Like It musical adaptation at the Delacorte Theater in New York’s Central Park

• Dr. Alys Daroy (she/her), a professor of English and Theatre at Murdoch University. Alys is also an actor and is co-artistic director of Shakespeare South, recognized as Australia’s first eco-Shakespeare company. She is co-author of the forthcoming book Shakespeare, Ecology and Adaptation: A Practical Guide.

To view video footage from Jennifer's and Darius's productions, visit shakespearesshadows.com/duke-senior-frederick-video

Hamlet’s best friend, Horatio, gets 7 percent of the lines in "Hamlet" next to the title character “who never shuts up” (as one guest on this episode puts it) with 37 percent. This episode gives Horatio his moment to be center stage, revealing how he doesn’t have to be a one-note or one-dimensional character, even as his role is in service of Hamlet’s story. We discuss Horatio’s journey being one of learned bravery, whether Hamlet and Horatio may be more than friends, and the significance of Horatio and other characters studying in Wittenberg.

Guests on this episode are:

Dr. Jonathan Gil Harris, a professor of English at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India. His publications include guest editing a 2011 special edition of Shakespeare Quarterly that was all about Horatio, titled “Surviving Hamlet”

David Gow, who played Horatio in September 2023 staged reading at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts opposite Finn Wittrock as Hamlet

This episode contains discussion of grief, murder, and suicide.

In "The Merchant of Venice," Portia is remarkable for her cleverness and the power she holds, and she’s ostensibly a hero of this story. But her journey is entwined with that of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender whose mistreatment makes "Merchant of Venice" a deeply troubling play. In this episode, we discuss just how extremely wealthy Portia is, whether or not Portia is likable (and how her likability is often approached differently in scholarship versus in performance), and how an actress may grapple with Portia’s role in Shylock’s ultimate fate.

Guests on this episode are:

Lynn Collins, who played Portia in the 2004 Merchant of Venice film directed by Michael Radford, starring alongside Joseph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons, and Al Pacino

Dr. Peter Holland, a professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Notre Dame teaching in both the English department and the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre

This episode contains explicit language and discussion of racism and religious intolerance.

Roberto Williams is one of five actors together playing the title character in Long Beach Playhouse’s current production of Hamlet. One actor plays what’s called the core Hamlet, and the others play four parts of Hamlet’s psyche: wisdom, innocence, justice, and vengeance — Roberto plays the latter.

In this bonus episode, Roberto discusses this unique staging of what’s often referred to as Shakespeare’s greatest play. He also shares some details about another adaptation of Hamlet inspired by Deaf culture that he’s developing, and he chats about his popular Instagram and TikTok reels that connect Shakespeare’s characters to modern pop culture.

Sleep No More, the immersive, one-of-a-kind adaptation of Macbeth, is in the spotlight in the first-ever bonus episode of Shakespeare’s Shadows. Co-produced by Punchdrunk and Emursive Productions, Sleep No More is a promenade-style performance that invites the audience members to freely explore the eerie spaces of its 5-story set. Its iconic run in New York is currently set to close in mid-June.

Though this episode doesn’t delve into a single Shakespeare character like a regular-format episode of Shakespeare’s Shadows does, you’ll still find the captivating character-focused discussion that you get in any episode of the podcast.

Emursive Chief Storyteller Ilana Gilovich chats with podcast host Emily Rome about Sleep No More’s impact and legacy, including how it weaves in elements of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, what the production’s props and imagery reveal about the characters, and her advice on how to get the most out of the show as an audience member.

In “Henry V,” King Henry gets a new foil: the French Dauphin, the heir apparent in France, England’s rival. In the conflict that culminates in the Battle of Agincourt, Shakespeare depicts the English with layers and complexity and ultimately with a great deal of nobility. Meanwhile, the French (in the text and sometimes even more so in performance) come off as arrogant, foppish, and often quite silly. This episode delves into discussion of the Dauphin’s relationship with his father the king, where Shakespeare diverges from real history, and how — even in a history play set at wartime — this character can be mined for a lot of comedy.

Guests on this episode are Stephen Michael Spencer, who played the Dauphin at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in 2023, and Dr. Elizabeth Pentland, a professor at York University in Toronto who specializes in Renaissance literature, including research on literary exchanges between England and France during the period of the French civil wars.

featuring interviews with actor Michael Blake, Pilobolus choreographers Matt Kent and Renée Jaworski, and SUNY New Paltz professor Matthieu Chapman

A Shakespeare play that can be at turns heartwarming and troubling, “The Tempest” features two major characters who don’t look like the humans around them: Caliban and Ariel. Caliban, repeatedly described as “monstrous” by other characters, is enslaved by Prospero, the play’s protagonist. This episode delves into discussion about post-colonial interpretations of this play written in the early 17th century, about the significance of Caliban’s mother being a witch from Algiers, and about varying approaches to “The Tempest” theme of choosing forgiveness over revenge and the question of whether Caliban’s ending is one with reconciliation.

Guests on this episode are:

• Matt Kent (he/him) and Renée Jaworski (she/her), artistic directors of the acclaimed modern dance company Pilobolus. They crafted the choreography for “The Tempest” directed by Aaron Posner and Teller (of Penn and Teller), a stage production that depicts Caliban as a two-headed creature played by two performers

• Michael Blake (he/him), who played Caliban for the Stratford Festival in 2018, among his nine seasons at the Stratford, Ontario festival. Michael is currently portraying the Player in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” opposite Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan.

• Dr. Matthieu Chapman (he/him), a theatre studies professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz whose publications include the books “Anti-Black Racism in Early Modern English Drama” and “Shattered: Fragments of a Black Life.”

This episode contains discussion of slavery, racial violence, involuntary intoxication, and an accusation of rape.

To view photos and video footage of the performances crafted by Pilobolus and by Michael Blake, visit shakespearesshadows.com/caliban-video

One half of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers is in the spotlight in this episode, which explores how this character goes from bad poet to good poet, what it takes to deliver an authentic and naturalistic Romeo, and how the introduction of the rapier to England shortly before Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet was a deadly game-changer in street brawls.

Guests on this episode are Dr. Courtney Lehmann, professor of English and Film Studies at the University of the Pacific and writer of the book Screen Adaptations: Romeo and Juliet: A close study of the relationship between text and film, and Bally Gill, who played Romeo at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2018, winning the prestigious Ian Charleston Award for the role. He has just made his return to the RSC, currently playing Oberon and Theseus in their Midsummer Night’s Dream.

featuring interviews with actors Patrice Jean-Baptiste and Simon Paisley Day and Gonzaga University professor Heather Easterling

One of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays, “The Taming of the Shrew,” gets put under the microscope in this episode as we examine the character Petruchio, the man who supposedly tames the play’s titular shrew. Discussed in this episode is what impact the play’s induction scene has on our perception of the play’s characters, Petruchio’s “taming” methods, and the ongoing debate about whether “Taming of the Shrew” should be retired from performance.

Guests on this episode are Patrice Jean-Baptiste (she/her), who spoke with Shakespeare’s Shadows in the midst of playing Petruchio in September 2023 in Boston with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project; Simon Paisley Day (he/him), who reflected back on taking on the role at Shakespeare’s Globe in London in 2012, and Dr. Heather Easterling (she/her), professor of English and of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Gonzaga University.

This episode contains explicit language and discussion of domestic abuse and domestic violence.

A spirit of mischief, transformation, and imagination, Puck aka Robin Goodfellow darts around A Midsummer Night’s Dream provoking chaos and confusion when a couple groups of humans wander into a forest populated by magical beings. Discussed in this episode is Puck’s relationship to Oberon, looking at Midsummer with an ecological lens, how Puck’s meter sets him apart, and why this play is such a popular choice for young audiences and young performers.

This episode is a special one for a couple reasons — among them: Ray Porter played Puck in the first professional production of Shakespeare that podcast creator Emily Rome ever saw, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 1998 Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. He reflects back on that production, as Katie Brokaw lends her expertise as both a professor and practitioner of Shakespeare at UC Merced and in Yosemite National Park.