Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we begin by exploring how Prospero’s magic in The Tempest reflects early modern grimoire traditions—a form of ritual magic rooted in books, incantations, and precise ceremonial practice, especailly as compared to the types of magic we discussed in our Macbeth episodes. We examine how Shakespeare's depiction of Prospero's art, Prospe...
Oct 08, 2025•54 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this mini-episode, we sit down with actor ML Roberts and co-playwrights Sean Patrick Nill and Elyse Sharp to talk about NEVER FEAR, SHAKESPEARE —a brand new Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) play premiering at Sacramento’s B Street Theatre. B Street is well known for its Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) programming, which brings high-quality, pr...
Sep 24, 2025•42 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. This episode explores Caliban’s role in The Tempest and the ways his character has been shaped by and interpreted through race, class, and colonialism. We begin with a close look at “the pinch” and unpack how Shakespeare’s audience would have understood its connections to resource scarcity and punishment. We then chart Caliban’s performance history ...
Sep 10, 2025•55 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this mini-episode, we explore the world of the Court Masque, a form of entertainment that flourished in the Tudor and Stuart courts. From its roots in medieval pageantry and music to its height as a vehicle for royal celebration and political display of wealth, the masque became a defining cultural event during Shakespeare's time. While Shakespea...
Aug 27, 2025•20 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this episode, we explore how The Tempest reflects—and at times challenges—patriarchal power structures in Shakespeare’s world and in its performance history. First, we examine how Prospero’s control over Miranda, Ariel, and Caliban reflects early modern ideas and debates about gender, political authority, and service. Then, we look at how changin...
Aug 13, 2025•54 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this mini episode, we’re joined by Mike and Steph Crugnola of Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project to talk about their mission to make Shakespeare more accessible—for both audiences and artists. We dive into the company’s flexible and innovative production models—including one rehearsal performances, collaborative directing, site-specific stagings,...
Jul 30, 2025•42 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. Did Shakespeare write The Tempest in response to a shipwreck, or was something bigger at play? In this episode, we explore the early modern travel narratives that many scholars believe inspired Shakespeare’s final solo play. We begin with lesser-known travel accounts that focus on cultural encounters in Russia, Southwest Asia, Central America, and I...
Jul 16, 2025•50 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. To kick off our series on Shakespeare's The Tempest , we are (as always) starting with an overview of basic facts and history about the play and an introduction to the major themes and motifs of the play. Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander. For updates: j...
Jul 02, 2025•32 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. We are now on to our tenth play series! Today we are starting our series on Shakespeare's The Tempest with a synopsis episode. In this episode, we will provide a detailed summary of the plot, breaking down the action of the play scene by scene. Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Special thanks to Nat Yonce...
Jun 18, 2025•1 hr 29 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this bonus episode, we’re joined by Dr. Kent Lehnhoff to talk about his new book, Voice and Ethics in Shakespeare’s Late Plays . Together, we explore how Shakespeare uses the concept and qualities of human voice in The Tempest , Cymbeline , King Lear, Pericles, and The Winter’s Tale , how he writes for and about the voice, and beyond that, how em...
Jun 04, 2025•45 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this wrap-up episode, we reflect on our journey through Shakespeare's King Henry V by examining three distinct productions that bring the play to life in unique ways. We begin with Kenneth Branagh's 1989 Oscar-nominated film adaptation, renowned for its realism and cinematic approach. Next, we delve into the 2022 Donmar Warehouse production starr...
May 21, 2025•57 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this mini-episode, we sit down with author Julie Hammonds to discuss her debut novel, Blue Mountain Rose: A Novel in Five Acts . Set against the backdrop of a fictional Shakespeare festival in the Arizona mountains during the 2009 financial crisis, the story follows theater director Richard Keane, company manager Kate Morales, and enigmatic actor...
May 07, 2025•33 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In today's episode, we are exploring the English relationships with foreigners and immigrants from other European countries. First, we'll discuss what the experience of immigrant communities was like in England during the Tudor and early Stuart periods--were the English people xenophobic or welcoming to others? We'll look specifically at experiences...
Apr 23, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. This week, we are bringing you something a little different and unlocking our Patreon bonus episode on the 1998 film, Shakespeare in Love . Over on our Patreon, we regularly watch/read and discuss Shakespeare-adjacent media. Shakespeare in Love , written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard and directed by John Madden, follows a fictional love affair bet...
Apr 09, 2025•25 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In today's episode, we will be exploring the lives of common and working people of Shakespeare's time. While Shakespeare's plays tend to feature nobles, monarchs, and other people of higher status as their main characters, they also feature a variety of characters from lower ranks of society. We will discuss the overall representation of common peop...
Mar 26, 2025•1 hr
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. Have you ever wondered where those colorful Folger paperback editions of Shakespeare plays got their name? Or how the Folger Shakespeare Library came to have the largest collection of First Folios in the world? Or if there was any relation to the coffee brand? In today’s episode, we are going to be exploring the life of Henry Folger, his wife Emily ...
Mar 12, 2025•31 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In today's episode, we are exploring the realities of military life in early modern and medieval England and how those realities are reflected (or not!) in Shakespeare's King Henry V. We will discuss historical misrepresentations of the English military during Shakespeare's lifetime and how recent scholarship has discovered a wealth of narratives th...
Feb 26, 2025•50 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about early modern English nobility. Shakespeare’s history plays are about monarchs and royal lineages, and the world he was writing in was organized by ranks and degrees. So, we think it's important to talk about these pivotal ranks from kings to landed gentry. And we want to acknowledge that this mini-episode i...
Feb 12, 2025•15 min
Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this week's episode, we are exploring the historical record to better understand the difference between the facts of the historical record and the history-making and myths in Shakespeare's King Henry V . We will share brief biographies of the historical figures presented in Shakespeare's play and discuss how understanding where Shakespeare embell...
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr 1 min
To kick off our series on Shakespeare's King Henry V , we are (as always) starting with an overview of basic facts about the play and an introduction to the major themes and motifs of the play. Location of the Battle of Agincourt Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander. Follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod for updates or visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com You can support the podcast by b...
Jan 15, 2025•29 min
We are starting off 2025 and Shakespeare Anyone's fifth year with our first History (and also a play with the number five in its title): King Henry V . In this episode, we will provide a detailed summary of the plot, breaking down the action of the play scene by scene. To quote this play, "once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," or...let's dive in! Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander. Foll...
Jan 01, 2025•1 hr 32 min
Over this past year, we quietly went back to where we began this podcast and worked on revising our Intro Series, "Stuff You Should Know." We updated the original episodes quietly in September. When we started thinking about what we wanted to release for the end of 2024, we feel like nothing encapsulates how we've grown as podcasters and scholars over the past four years better than these revised episodes, so we wanted to revisit them and share these episodes again. -- This is Part 3 of our intr...
Dec 18, 2024•20 min
Over this past year, we quietly went back to where we began this podcast and worked on revising our Intro Series, "Stuff You Should Know." We updated the original episodes quietly in September. When we started thinking about what we wanted to release for the end of 2024, we feel like nothing encapsulates how we've grown as podcasters and scholars over the past four years better than these revised episodes, so we wanted to revisit them and share these episodes again. -- This is Part 2 of our intr...
Dec 18, 2024•25 min
Over this past year, we quietly went back to where we began this podcast and worked on revising our Intro Series, "Stuff You Should Know." We updated the original episodes quietly in September. When we started thinking about what we wanted to release for the end of 2024, we feel like nothing encapsulates how we've grown as podcasters and scholars over the past four years better than these revised episodes, so we wanted to revisit them and share these episodes again. -- This is Part I of our intr...
Dec 18, 2024•19 min
It's time for our annual bonus episode! Join us as we revisit the Shakespeare plays we covered this year. We've gone back and re-read both Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing , and we will discuss what has changed in our readings of these plays after completing our research as well as what we would like to see more (or less) of in future productions or research relating to these two plays. Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverendin...
Dec 04, 2024•23 min
Each year, in recognition of the National Day of Mourning/Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, we examine how British colonialism is irrevocably intertwined with Shakespeare through close reading of Jyotsna Singh's Shakespeare and Postcolonial Theory . In this week's episode, we will explore how Shakespeare’s plays can be interpreted and performed in a postcolonial society. This practice involves shifting our perceptions of Shakespeare’s plays as timeless and universal to timely and partic...
Nov 20, 2024•22 min
In today's episode, we will be finishing up our exploration of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing by watching and discussing three productions. First, we will discuss Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film version, starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. Then we will take a look at the 2019 Public Theatre's Shakespeare in Park production directed by Kenny Leon and starring Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman. Last but not least, we will round out our viewings with the 2011 Wyndham's Theatre producti...
Nov 06, 2024•1 hr 3 min
In today's episode, we are exploring the life of Shakespeare’s contemporary, Aemilia Bassano Lanyer (whose name is also spelled as Emilia Lanier), who was one of the first women in England to publish her writing and is the author of the first published book of poetry by an English woman. First, we will explore Aemilia's early life before discussing her groundbreaking volume of poetry, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum . We will talk about what is known of the rest of Aemilia's life before giving a brief ...
Oct 23, 2024•21 min
In today's episode, we are exploring the historical and theatrical context for bastard characters in Shakespeare's plays and other plays of the early modern period. We'll explore the cultural norms that existed for illegitimate children during the Elizabethan and Jacobean and the legal, financial, and social prejudices they and their parents experienced. We will also discuss how the experience of illegitimacy intersects with class in early modern England. Then, we will explore how the early mode...
Oct 09, 2024•53 min
In today's episode, we are joined by Shakespeare scholar, Darren Freebury-Jones, to discuss his soon-to-be-released book, Shakespeare's Borrowed Feathers , which explores how Shakespeare was influenced by his fellow contemporary dramatists like John Lyly, Ben Johnson, and Christopher Marlowe, and how he also influenced their work. We'll discuss Darren's research process and the methods he used to analyze the works of Shakespeare and Shakespeare's contemporaries. We will also learn from Darren wh...
Sep 25, 2024•48 min
