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

Duchess of Malfi 101

Welcome to the werewolf-filled world of Webster’s Duchess of Malfi (#alliteration)! In Meet the Contemporary we tell you what we know about that guy John Webster (not much); we go a little long in the summary but that’s only because the play itself is sooooooo long; we read murderous moment in A Taste of Text; Jess reads from a real-life German account of a real-life 16th century werewolf; and in our ShakesBubble Gossip segment we give you a few more free online resources to occupy your shelter-in-place free time. We also played a game, Secret Werewolf, but it was cut for time — look for it as an Extra later this week! Stay home! Wash your hands! Be well, friends!