Why write like Shakespeare...when you could write like you? Exploring old verse and new, H2H seeks to provide free education to all those looking to write, perform, or teach verse drama, as we continue to make "new Shakespeare plays" for everybody Shakespeare *didn't* write for!
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EXTRA, EXTRA! EXTRA SPECIAL INTERVIEW! This time Colin and Emily sit down and talk form, drama, poetry — what it is, what it does, and *why* —with Chicago multi-hyphenate writer, translator, performer and (in our professional opinion) hidden gem, Robert Eric Shoemaker! NOTE: Recorded Nov. 2024. GUEST BIO:Robert Eric Shoemaker (he/him) is a poet, translator, and interdisciplinary artist. His book, Magical Poetics: The Magic of Language and Real-World Effect Poetry, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury....
Join us for a very special conversation with NYC verse dramatist and friend, Duncan Pflaster as we trace his journey from blank verse to experimental poetry, in service of heart and humor. More interviews to come as we kick off our fifth year of exploring verse drama. NOTE: This was recorded in late 2022. CONTENT: Frank discussion of sexuality throughout. Brief mention of sexual assault and the #MeToo movement as it pertains to one of Duncan's plays (~55 minutes in). Brief discussion of suicide ...
It's our season finale, y'all!...Kinda. Today, we cover plays between Kind Edward to Queen Elizabeth I, as we wrap up the season on this feed, before finishing our season properly on the Beyond Shakespeare Company podcast. Big thanks to Rob Crighton of Beyond Shakes for guiding us through this season. We're excited to share the remainder of the season (including the introduction of blank verse, iambic pentameter, and prose!) on the Beyond Shakes Podcast feed. http://www.hamlettohamilton.com http...
Welcome to our penultimate episode of Season Four, as we continue our journey through Anglophone verse drama. Today, our H2H hosts Emily and Colin, joined by Rob Crighton of the Beyond Shakespeare Company, get a little silly and imagine muppets performing the flurry of fragments from the 1550's. Make sure you're subscribed to the Beyond Shakespeare Company Podcast feed to continue the second half of our season, as we look at the first iambic pentameter and blank verse plays, as well as the first...
It's time for what Rob Crighton is calling the "most theatrical play ever written!" Get ready for a second look at John Heywood's play...and let us know what you think. Hamlet to Hamilton Beyond Shakespeare Company
We're continuing through the beginnings of print culture with John Rastell and John Heywood. Season Four we're examining the origins of Anglophone drama, in crossover with the Beyond Shakespeare Company Podcast! Hamlet to Hamilton Beyond Shakespeare Company
Today we're excited to bring you the Tudor master of rhyme, John Skelton and his short and shouty Skeltonics! Thanks to Rob of the Beyond Shakespeare Company for guiding us this season through the history of English verse drama! Beyond Shakespeare Company Hamlet to Hamilton Patreon
We're back with the Beyond Shakespeare Podcast to (finally!) look at early Tudor drama. Specifically, we're looking at Rhyme Royal , which you can learn more about here! Hamlet to Hamilton Beyond Shakespeare Company
What was the importance of manuscripts, and the impact of the printing press on late Medieval drama? This episode introduces our first named playwright, John Lydgate, and his 1465 play, "Mankind." Rob Crighton of the Beyond Shakespeare Company continues this tour through the History of English Verse Drama, along with your hosts Emily C. A. Snyder and Colin Kovarik. Hamlet to Hamilton: Website Beyond Shakespeare Company: Website...
And now for something completely different: H2H is partnering with the Beyond Shakespeare Company, and this time we're pleased to present the BSC's full audio cast production of "The Harrowing of Hell" - one of the very first Anglophone verse dramas, from around 1250 CE. We'll be back soon with the beginning of the Tudor period as we continue to explore the history of English drama. In the meantime, you can listen to our exploratory session with this text and other Medieval dramas in S4 E1: the ...
As we draw near the end of the Middle Ages, we take a look at interlude and debate plays. Rob Crighton of the Beyond Shakespeare Company continues this tour through the History of English Verse Drama, along with your hosts Emily C. A. Snyder and Colin Kovarik. Hamlet to Hamilton: Website Beyond Shakespeare Company: Website
It's time to look at morality plays. What are they? How wacky can they get? Rob Crighton of the Beyond Shakespeare Company continues this tour through the History of English Verse Drama, along with your hosts Emily C. A. Snyder and Colin Kovarik. Hamlet to Hamilton: Website Beyond Shakespeare Company: Website
Welcome to the long-awaited Season 4 of "Hamlet to Hamilton!" This season, we're joined by Robert Crighton of the Beyond Shakespeare Company. Rob will be our guide through the earliest English verse drama, as hosts Emily C. A. Snyder and Colin Kovarik try out scenes from morality plays and mystery cycles and see just how we got from some highly stylized rhyming drama to the blank verse we know and love today. Hamlet to Hamilton: Website Beyond Shakespeare Company: Website...
Playwright Monica Cross is back, chatting about some of the tricks and tips she uses as a neurodivergent person when sitting down to write (and rewrite) her verse drama. CONTENT WARNING: Monica and Emily do (gently) discuss the script formatting and Monica's direction of Sarah Kane's play, 4:48 Psychosis , a brilliant contemporary verse play which does deal with mental trauma and suicidality. These are mentioned only insofar as they relate to the play. Make sure to check out Monica's previous in...
For Shakespeare's Birthday, we're kicking off a mini-season of interviews before we dive into Season Four. Let us introduce you to Kyle J. McCloskey (He/They), a two-time recipient of the Paula Vogel Prize from the Kennedy Center, here to chat with us about Paula Vogel's concepts of plasticity, as well as how soliloquies can be powerful political tools. Official Website: https://www.kylejmccloskey.com/ New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/576/kyle-j-mccloskey Paul Vogel Interview...
Sometimes art really does come Velveteen Rabbit-alive. In February 2023, Mary Baldwin University gave the Virginia Premiere of Emily C. A. Snyder's Cupid and Psyche. Here's Emily's reflection on what it was like to let her artistic baby go, and what it's like to see art grow up and become alive. Please Note: What follows is said with all love and respect to anyone who has ever born, lost, or gestated a child in their body. Metaphors are imperfect. Experiences grope for words. Thank you for under...
The season finale delves into how poetic imagery and techniques can either enhance or detract from verse drama, emphasizing that poetry must serve the plot and characters in a dramatic context. Through detailed analysis, the host contrasts Shakespeare's successful deployment of imagery in Antony and Cleopatra with his less effective attempts in Romeo and Juliet. The episode also critically examines T. S. Eliot's brilliant poetry in Four Quartets versus his often-criticized dramatic works like The Cocktail Party, highlighting the pitfalls of a playwright's voice overwhelming character and plot.
It's a new year and a new Unhinged Rant! We're returning to T. S. Eliot, looking at his poetry in The Cocktail Party vs. Four Quartets . The cool thing is Eliot always sounds like Eliot. The cooler thing is that Ralph Fiennes performed Four Quartets (a poetry cycle) on the English stage in 2021. The weird thing is that Fiennes' works...and The Cocktail Party doesn't. What's going on with poetry on-stage anyway? UNHINGED RANTS are Patreon-only monthly exclusives. We're unlocking this one for you,...
We close out our exploration of creating character through line breaks by looking at Sir Gawain from The Table Round and The Siege Perilous by our own Emily C. A. Snyder. We're breaking down how a character can go from complete end-stopped thoughts, to open-ended insecurity, as well as how caesura and broken lines can define a character's arc. Strap in as we look at one character...and then tell us how you're using line endings, caesura and schwumpf in your own work! PLEASE NOTE: Sir Gawain suff...
Let's look at some hyper contemporary verse to see how line endings are used in some Broadway and Off-Broadway plays. We're delving into Lucas Hnath's A Doll House, Pt. 2 and Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play to see how enjambment and end stopped lines work when we're not in iambic pentameter. (Note: Fear not! Although Slave Play contains difficult material, there is no content warning for this episode as the portion quoted is a neutral and not charged speech. Phew!) Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/h...
We're sitting down with the woman herself: Monica Cross sits down with us to chat about character building through line endings. We're looking at an early modern play and one of Monica's works in progress that makes Hero the heroine of Much Ado About Nothing . Monica Cross Online: https://monicaatcross.wixsite.com/theroaringgirl Monica Cross Twitter: https://twitter.com/theroaringgirl Monica Cross on New Play Exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/users/1040/monica-cross Website: hamlettohamilton...
How do you discover your character through the use of line breaks when writing verse? We're starting a mini-series on that very question, thanks to some great insight from playwright, Monica Cross. In this episode, we define five different dramatic reasons why a line ends (end stopped, enjambment, silence, stage direction and interruption), and we start looking at primarily end stopped lines. We also contrast King Arthur in Arthur Phillips' The Tragedy of Arthur , compared to King Henry V in Wil...
We've talked about the basics of writing soliloquy...but how do you find your character's voice? In this episode, we look at T. S. Eliot's idea of the "Three Voices of Poetry," as well as examining Abigail Thorn (of PhilosophyTube)'s brilliant use of breaking iambic pentameter in her new verse play, "The Prince." BONUS! Emily guides you through exploring prosody. How do you feel about iambics? Trochees? Anapest? What rhythms do your characters speak in? Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/hamlettoha...
Move over, Hamlet! Now that we've looked at what a soliloquy is , it's time to dive into how to write the classic soliloquy. Emily guides you through the different parts of a classic soliloquy so that you can begin to write or revise your own work. We also share some listener feedback! Have a comment you'd like to be shared on-air? You can tweet at us @hamlet2hamilton or contact us at hamlettohamilton@gmail.com. We love to hear your insights. CONTENT WARNING: This episode looks at two speeches f...
Eidetic. Adetosic. Stichic. Protean. Morphic. What the *hell* do all these words mean? What are they and how do they work? How might they interact with the concepts we dug into last week: schwumpf and uvriel? Colin asks Emily all of this and more in another installment of SHAKES NOTES. Join us in finding out the answers AND, for free, get a dose of fascinating conversation on much more than *merely* verse drama! Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/hamlettohamilton Website: http://www.hamlettothamilt...
We've had the lectures...and now it's time to have the class interaction! Colin hosts our new segment, SHAKES NOTES, where he doubles down in conversation with Emily about different ideas the podcast is putting forth. First up is a discussion of just what "schwumpf" means. Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/hamlettohamilton Website: http://www.hamlettothamilton.com
Season Three we're talking about soliloquy! We've covered how Shakespeare has used soliloquy, but we can learn so much more from how musical theatre employs soliloquy. From Howard Ashman's iconic "I want" song, such as in The Little Mermaid , to the much-anticipated "double soliloquy" such as the final number of The Last Five Years , we've got some fun ideas for you writers out there. Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/hamlettohamilton Website: http://www.hamlettohamilton.com...
In Season Three, we're looking at soliloquy! For the conclusion of our look at Shakespeare's use of soliloquies, we turn to the meta-theatrical soliloquy, from Bottom playing Pyramus to Hamlet declaring that the play is the thing. Sure, we know that Characters can perform Soliloquies...but what happens when those Characters "play Characters ?" We're talking about kangaroo pocket dimensions. We're talking about that one time an Elizabethan actor punched an audience member. We're talking about met...
This special episode redefines verse drama by proposing a new "bullet formatting" alongside traditional verse and paragraph structures. Inspired by MA student Kyara Hunter, the host explores how rapid-fire dialogue, like Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First?" or exchanges in Shakespeare, utilizes performative white space and "schwumpf" (collection of ideas) differently than traditional verse. The discussion provides practical examples and live readings to illustrate how these distinct formats profoundly impact comedic timing and dramatic interpretation.
In our continuing Season Three deep dive into soliloquy, we have come at last to "madness" in soliloquy. We'll be taking a look at King Lear from Lear , Lady M from Macbeth , and Ophelia from Hamlet. CONTENT WARNING: This episode does discuss disassociation, and historically misguided views of "madness" and "hysteria." There is also mention of suicide as it pertains to the plots of Shakespeare's plays. What happens when we look at these soliloquies through the eyes of the actors? How do what we'...
