Yorkshire Tragedy 101
It’s our ONE HUNDREDTH EPISODE EXTRAVAGANZAAAAAAA!!! To celebrate, we brought in new and returning friends of the pod, Charlie Bell, Courtney Parker, Molly Seremet, Patrick Harris, and Sawyer Kemp to read Thomas Middleton’s Yorkshire Tragedy in its entirety, purely for your listening pleasure. This week, you get your Summary, Taste of Text, and Tips and Tidbits all rolled into one ridiculous bout of reader’s theatre, with a healthy dose of murder on top. We wouldn’t want to celebrate the Big 100 any other way.
Here’s what we recommended in this week’s Happy Hour feature:
the @adventcarolndar instagram account: 60-second 2020 carols, one a day till Dec. 25, by @joelwaggoner and @juliamet
For a “Swiftie” kick: the Evermore album and Long Pond studio sessions
@sotherans on Twitter
Here’s what we featured in our ShakesBubble Gossip segments:
ShaxBull’s new advisory board: Farah Karim-Cooper, David Sterling Brown, Lauren Eriks Cline, Vanessa Corredera, Sawyer Kemp, Nora Williams, and Sandra Young.
Ruben Espinosa’s new book!
Hailey Bachrach’s newsletter - Dramatis Personae
Nothing for the Group newsletter/roundup by dramaturg Lauren Halvorsen
Insatiate Countess 101
So there’s this Countess, and she’s horny AF…and thus begins John Marston’s The Insatiate Countess. We dish a little happy with some signal boosts in our Happy Hour segment; we tell you everything we know about John Marston and the other writers who had a hand in this text in our Meet the Contemporary feature; our Taste of Text is extra tasty because the titular Countess is, in fact, thirsty like whoa; we give you yet another title to ponder while Keeping Up With the Queen’s Men; we gossip a bit and GTFO. Watch out for that Countess’ “dark hole” is all we’re saying.
Here’s what we recommended in this week’s Happy Hour feature:
All My Relations podcast
Ijeoma Oluo’s new book: MEDIOCRE
They Never Learn by Layne Fargo
@soyouwanttotalkabout on Instagram
Here’s what we featured in our ShakesBubble Gossip segments:
Red Bull Theatre’s live reading of A King and No King on Dec. 14, 2020
Listen to some brilliant teens stage their favorite scenes from Shakespeare as radio plays on the Dr. Ralph Presents podcast
Lear 301
In this episode we give you a run down of all the other versions of the King Lear (or Leir) story that have existed before and after Shakespeare wrote his own version. The Queen’s Men had one, Nahum Tate adapted one, as did William Charles Macready. We also list some Shakespeare-themed gift ideas for your holiday shopping list, gossip a little, and address a few important corrections from past episodes. You heard it here first, folx, we’re human and we sometimes make mistakes, but we also try to grow and do better. Unlike King Lear (regardless of which version you prefer).
Here’s what we recommended in this week’s Happy Hour feature:
Fat Rascals: Dining at Shakespeare’s Table by OSF legend John Tufts
Give the gift of an experience by buying a gift certificate to your local theatre to be cashed in for tickets when this pandemic is finally over!
Whatever and however you gift, we hope you consider sustainability and zero-waste options, like this plantable wrapping paper that not only wraps your lovely gifts, but then grows into wildflowers in the spring
Arden editions of a play are great! So is a Norton-edition Folio Facsimile!
A cute (and meta) Shakespeare mask on Etsy
Also this Lady M inspired bookmark for the bibliophiles on your list
Here’s what we featured in our ShakesBubble Gossip segments:
Sign up for the FREE RaceB4 Symposium here
Keep an eye out for Dr. Vanessa Corredera’s talk on December 9: “What’s Wrong with Critical Race Theory”
1 Henry VI 201
We return to the War of the Roses with this 201 dive into 1 Henry VI, a history play that even Jess likes. We learn all about the real St. Joan of Arc and how her story and image got twisted to conform to English propaganda and the patriarchy (eye roll), and Aubrey illuminates the moment between Margaret and Suffolk in act 5 that demands to be delivered to no one but the audience. We also Keep Up with the Queen’s Men and give you a quick and dirty summary of George Peele’s The Old Wife’s Tale (which may or may not be the most underrated comedy of its time). Slight microphone issues aside, we hope you enjoy the episode.
Here’s what we recommended in this week’s Happy Hour feature:
Games for Actors and Non-Actors by Augusto Boal
Brandy C. Williams’s #ShakeRace syllabus
Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory
Help flip the senate! Go to warnockforgeorgia.com and electjon.com to learn more about the runoff elections in Georgia this coming January!
Here’s what we featured in our ShakesBubble Gossip segments:
Here are some ways to get your digital 1 Henry VI fix:
The Show Must Go Online from earlier this year
2013 Globe version available to rent on the Globe Player
1983 production available on Amaz*n
Digital Theatre + (check with your local public library)
Macbeth Folger BTS
We Acknowledge Ours Roundtable
The White Devil 101
In our first 101 episode in…a while…we take a minute to remind you of who the F* John Webster even is (spoiler: he’s the creepy, dirty, mouse torturer from “The Documentary” Shakespeare In Love); we give you a good old-fashioned short-is summary; we bring you A Taste of Text (and some dumbshows) from The White Devil; Jess and Aubrey each pose some lingering quandaries we have about the play; we launch our new feature, Keeping Up With the Queen’s Men, to tell you all about Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay from the Queen’s Men’s repertory; we gossip some and we laugh a lot. All this and more, so get ready! We’re diving into Webster’s The White Devil like there’s no tomorrow!
Here’s what we recommended in this week’s Happy Hour feature:
The Body is Not An Apology - website, book, social media presence, and all-around radical self-love movement spearheaded by Sonya Renee Taylor
This simple-yet-scrummy crumpet recipe
Folger CRC with Jenn Park and Gitanjali Shahani: We Are What You Eat, Conversations on Food and Race
Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Here’s what we featured in our ShakesBubble Gossip segments:
HedgePig Ensemble’s Expand the Canon project
The Donmar Trilogy which will be streaming for free all of October 2020
A Queen's Men Romp!
This episode is a little different from the norm - come with us as we explore the wild world of early modern playing companies! What were they? Why were they? Who were they? And other W words as well. Our look at the Queen’s Men (aka the all-star troupe of actors commanded by Her Majesty) will set us up for the rest of the season, throughout which we will closely examine some of the big headliner titles from the Queen’s Men’s repertory and ask you to VOTE on which one we should feature as a 101 episode at the end of this season. We introduce a new game - The Lost Plays Game! - and also take a few short trips down tangential creeks into the origins of the vacuum cleaner and a memorially reconstructed version of “The Documentary” Shakespeare in Love. It’s a romp. A Queen’s Men romp.
Here’s what we recommended** in this week’s Happy Hour feature:
Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings
Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
American Royals by Katherine McGee
Kim F Hall’s 2016 Shakespeare Birth lecture
**The links for the above books are NOT affiliate links, but we did take care to send you to non-Am@z0n booksellers #supportindiebookstores #citescholarsofcolor
Here’s what we featured in our Game/ShakesBubble Gossip segments:
The Public’s Richard II radio play now available in a 4-part podcast
The Donmar Trilogy which will be streaming for free all of October 2020
Cymbeline 201
IN A WORLD full of pandemic podcasts…Whamlet makes our triumphant return with our Season 4 premiere: CYMBELINE 201! We introduce a new feature: Happy Hour; we talk about the evil queen trope and the Cymbeline’s Celtic “roots” in pre-Roman king Cunobelin; we shamelessly self-promote our other current projects and generally revel in reuniting for what is sure to be a killer season. Want to know what’s in store this year? Gotta listen up!
From today’s NEW Happy Hour feature:
Ayanna Thompson’s Othello presentation that everyone needs to watch IMMEDIATELY.
You can download the entire issue of Shakespeare Quarterly for FREE and read up on premodern critical race studies!
Also this super Queer reading of the Twilight series.
From our ShakesBubble Gossip segment:
Listen to Aubrey play Lady M on The Horned Moon Presents podcast
Jess will charm your pants off on this episode of A Bit Lit
Jess gushes about Pericles for the Shakespeare 2020 project
Wanna hear about The Hudson Strode program? Tune in here on Oct. 14, 2020!
Season 4 Announcement!
Did you miss us? We missed YOU! We return from our LOOOONNGGG summer break with a vengeance on October 5, 2020.
We have so many (good) surprises in store, Season 4 promises to be our best yet.
See you October 5!
Clyomon & Clamydes 101
For our Season 3 grand finale, we would love to introduce you to Clyomon and Clamydes, the bro-nemies that predate all others of this period and whose play is nothing by rhyming fourteeners. We re-meet the contemporary, that prolific Anonymous, “waltz” our way through a summary, and give you a Taste of Text you will never forget. Jess also delivers the other part of her paper about shipwrecks (the first half is in our Pericles episode), we give you a little ShakesBubble Gossip to get you through our extended hiatus, and give you an impromptu review of NTLive’s Frankenstein, too (spoiler alert: we don’t know how we feel about it but we really like that nice Johnny Lee Miller). Friends, this will be our last episode for a while, what with 2020 being slightly insane, so we hope to see you happy and healthy on the other side. Be well!
Bonus: Secret Werewolf
Favorite guest expert and fellow #LadyAcademic Molly Seremet returns to talk to us about why Fletcher and Massinger’s goofy pirate collabo, The Sea Voyage, should be on everyone’s “must” list. We introduce you to the elusive and myste”