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 stage directions in addition to the written dialogue, and what impact Condell and Heminges' publication of the First Folio might have had on the course of Shakespeare's enduring legacy thereafter.

Are we doing Shakespeare a disservice to study his works as literature?

You'll learn: 

>> Does Shakespeare belong in literature or are we mistakenly placing him there? 

>> What about original practice techniques? Does that help us get closer to real Shakespeare? 

>> Turns out early modern theaters had a playbill. Find out what it contained and how it was used

>> How does the stage itself impact the performance? Are the stage directions we can read designed for a specific space? 

>> We talk Cymbeline, Titus Andronicus, Oedipus, and more!

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 now been moved into the archives at the Museum of London, at the time they were displayed they were part of a small collection of shoes and artifacts like hazelnuts which were possibly worn by Shakespearean actors at The Rose, and the hazelnut shells have their own theater connection as well. The remarkable find is allowing archaeologists and historians to piece together some of the history of Shakespeare’s time period. 

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 completed 6 historical novels set in the Renaissance or Middle Ages and her work focuses primarily on Shakespeare. Her latest book, Gunpowder Percy, builds on the historical facts surrounding the 1605 Gunpowder Plot when Shakespeare was 41 years old. In addition to her novels, Grace has received numerous research and teaching awards for her creativity in the field of Shakespeare Studies. She has written numerous scholarly articles and monographs on Renaissance history and culture, with her work appearing in Shakespeare Studies, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, and The Renaissance Quarterly, among others. James Shapiro has called Grace’s book The Turquoise Ring, one of the six best creative adaptations of Shakespeare in history. Today, Grace is joining us to discuss the subject of her first novel, Judith Quiney, and take us inside the life of Shakespeare’s second daughter.

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 performance methods of Shakespeare’s theatre.

He joins us today to discuss original practice, and what the real role of understanding Shakespeare's perspective on theater does, and should, have on our modern performances today. PLUS: he tells us honestly that he, too, was one of those students who hated Shakespeare until the stage opened up a new perspective for him.

In this episode, I'll be asking Ben about: 

• What Shakespeare's theater would have been like when he was performing his own plays
• If his plays were performed using these conventions originally, why do you think we lost touch with that format somewhere along the way? 
• What is a cue script? Why did Shakespeare use them?
• Since Ben pays close attention to the silent stage directions when producing plays in original practice, I also ask him to settle a mystery and share with us: How does George Plantagenet REALLY die in Richard III?

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 to have personally edited Shakespeare's complete corpus." He will be talking with us about Religion in the 16th Century. I will be asking him to offer a brief explanation of the state of Catholic vs Protestant in England during Shakespeare's lifetime, as well as what, if any, impact this climate had on the life and work of William Shakespeare himself.