Blogging Shakespeare

Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach (1876–1952) was known respectfully as the Doctor or Dr. R, and familiarly as Rosy. He lived at 2008–2010 Delancey Place, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, and maintained a second bookshop at 15 East 51st Street in New York City. Fundamental to Rosenbach’s success was his intellectual training at the University of Pennsylvania. With […]

By Stephen Grant. In October 1931, armored trucks left Brooklyn––where Shakespeare collectors Henry and Emily Folger had lived––for a night ride to Washington DC. Security guards packed Colt .45 pistols, riot guns, and tear-gas bombs. When Folger Shakespeare Library staff unpacked the 2100 cases constituting the Folger collection, they were in for a few surprises. […]

“Censure me in your wisdom”: Bowdlerized Shakespeare in the nineteenth century By Alexa Alice Joubin Shakespeare has been used to divert around censorship, “sanitized” and redacted for children, young adults and school use, and even used as a form of protest all over the world. While censors have reacted differently to Shakespeare (sometimes with a […]

Trumping Shakespeare: Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and the Rise of the Clown Politician By Paul Hamilton (This post was originally published as part of the Kingston Shakespeare Seminars) In a May 26, 2016 Los Angeles Times article, entitled“The theater of Trump: What Shakespeare can teach us about the Donald”, theater critic Charles McNulty undergoes what […]

“Podcasting the Bard” By Catherine Clifford and Yolana Wassersug   Depending upon whom you ask, we may be experiencing a podcast golden age or “Renaissance” these days. Podcasts, who take their name from a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcast”, are easy and inexpensive to produce, and they provide a platform for sharing ideas with a […]

The undeniable spirit of New Orleans has infused our four days here with a beat all of its own. From our first evening when we took our eye-opening walk down Bourbon Street, to the photograph we had taken with an Uncle Sam lookalike outside the Maple Leaf jazz bar on Oak Street, and the magical, […]

Arrived in New Orleans the other night after 600 mile drive from an unexpected stop in the unexpectedly delightful St. Genevieve, MO. A gumbo dinner and good night’s sleep later and we’re enjoying coffee in high humidity. Amid the sweet, sticky madness of it all, I thought it might be grounding to make a list […]

‘Romeo loved Juliet Juliet she felt the same When he put his arms around her He said ‘Julie, baby, you’re my flame Thou giv-est fever when we kisseth Fever with the flaming youth Fever I’m afire Fever yea I burn for sooth’ Elvis Presley would have sung these lyrics about Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers hundreds of […]

As we leave the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival I look across Kansas City to the trees lying beyond the skyscrapers. The Winter’s Tale which we saw in Southmoreland Park feels like it is sending its city beat onto the road in front of us. We are at once driving away from and heading towards […]