Shakespeare Decoded

Hosted by Interim Artistic Director, Jenni Stewart, this episode explores Dramaturgy and Translation as the Gateway to Shakespeare Engagement with Taylor Bailey, Producing Director of Play On Shakespeare, Alex Vermillion, Dramaturg and Digital Content Writer for Play On Shakespeare, and Yvette Nolan, Playwright and Translator of Henry IV Part 1 & 2. For more information, visit https://playonshakespeare.org/

Hosted by Hamlet director, Christie Vela, this episode explores why Hamlet is still relevant to our modern world. Featured guests, Nicole Berastequi, Victoria Cruz, and Katie Ibrahim, discuss the various themes and characters that mean the most to us in present times, as well as the challenges and opportunities that creating an all-woman Hamlet has given them as artists. Hamlet is running now through October 15, 2022. Learn more at shakespearedallas.org 

Hosted by Production Manager, Adrian Churchill, this episode explores the diverse ways that Shakespeare’s plays can be explored politically. Featured guests, Maryam Baig, Whitney Holotik, and Dennis Raveneau, discuss the numerous styles of political action and role evident in a variety of Shakespeare’s works, from statesmanship and the competition for state office or for sovereignty, to the everyday relations of kinship and friendship, to the individuals’ struggles against politically established power – patriarchy, class, law – that constrains or oppresses them. They also discuss the politics of their own Shakespearean careers.

The typical Shakespeare production follows an odd convention: a contemporary setting with Elizabethan language. What if we flipped that? Contemporary language with an Elizabethan setting. What might we learn about the plays from putting them through that lens?

Hosted by Associate Artistic Director, Jenni Stewart, this episode explores Shakespeare in Modern Translation with Lue Douthit, Founder and Creative Director of Play On Shakespeare. In the fall of 2015, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced a new commissioning program called Play on! 36 playwrights translate Shakespeare. The project was simple yet enthusiastically ambitious in its original conception: to commission 36 playwrights (with one lucky playwright taking on all three Henry VIs) to translate 39 plays attributed to Shakespeare (including Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward III) into contemporary, modern English over the course of three years. At the end of Play On!’s three-year tenure at OSF, energized by its overwhelming scope and success, the project’s producing team secured funding to form their own, new not-for-profit company. On January 1, 2019, they established Play On Shakespeare, an organization funded by the Hitz Foundation that seeks to enhance the understanding of Shakespeare’s plays for theater professionals, students and audiences by engaging with contemporary translations and adaptations

*Please note the originally scheduled production of Twelfth Night at Shakespeare Dallas in January 2022 was canceled due to Covid-19.

Join us as we explore the journey King Lear goes through from beginning the of play as a self absorbed tyrant to his family, to a man full of love and compassion at the end. Panelists bring both deep context to the play through Shakespeare’s writing and relevant contemporary issues with older adults that relate to the play. This episode is hosted by Raphael Parry (Executive and Artistic Director of Shakespeare Dallas) and features Erik Ehn (Professor at the University of New Mexico, Playwright, Guide at Still Write Silent Retreats) and Aubrey Ferguson (Actor, Musician, Activities Director at a senior housing facility).

Featured Voice Actors: 

Dennis Raveneau (as King Lear)

Meagan Harris (as Cordelia)

Raphael Parry ( as Fool and Doctor)

Hosted by Jenni Stewart (Associate Artistic Director, Shakespeare Dallas) with guest panelists Daniel Kemper (Master of Casting & Company Management at Rude Grooms and Co-Host of This Wooden O) and Montgomery Sutton (Master of Revels at Rude Grooms and Co-Host of This Wooden O). William Shakespeare lived his entire life in the shadow of the bubonic plague. Much of his work was composed, if not in lockdown, then in the shadow of a highly infectious disease without a known cure. This episode discusses how the plague affected some of Shakespeare's greatest works as well as how our current pandemic of Covid-19 is affecting artists right now.

Hosted by Meagan Harris (Programs Associate, Shakespeare Dallas), this episode dives in to the mental health in the characters of Hamlet and Ophelia. Panelists also discuss the actor’s process for portraying roles where mental health is a central focus of the character. This group explores what Shakespeare's most famous protagonist can teach us about trauma and caring for our mental health.

Guest speakers:

Emily Faith (Teaching Artist + Masters Candidate in Drama Therapy)

Seth Magill (Actor + Educator)

Stormi Demerson (Actor + Artist)

When we think of the time that Shakespeare was writing his most famous plays, what do we think of? A time when the world was very different- so different that women were sold into marriage by their fathers, prohibited from entering most professions, denied the right to vote, even barred from writing literature or performing on a public stage. In the Elizabethan era, the male distrust of female sexuality underlies much of their patriarchal system. It was a common belief that women tempt men with their beauty, landing the burden of responsibility solely on the woman because it was taught that men cannot control their physical arousal.

In one of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice is often remembered as the feminist icon. But Beatrice and Benedick’s reluctant romance is a sub-plot, after all. The main action revolves around Hero, the innocent and obedient daughter of Leonato, who is praised for her modesty. She is used by the play’s villains in a setup that results in her being publicly slut-shamed on her wedding day by both her father and her fiancé. Her loyal cousin Beatrice is the only person who comes to her defense, prompting Shakespeare to write some of Beatrice’s most famous words “O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.”

So where does that place women today, four hundred-some-odd years later?

This episode is hosted by Jenni Stewart, Associate Artistic Director at Shakespeare Dallas. Our guests are Rosaura Cruz, Executive Director of Junior Players; Vietca Do, Arts Engagement Programs Manager of The Old Globe; Lauren Smart Professor of Practice in Journalism at Southern Methodist University. 

Shakespeare Dallas is a non-profit theater company located in Dallas, Texas. To keep this podcast and other educational programming free and accessible, donate here: https://www.shakespearedallas.org/give/

Using Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice” as a foundation for discussion, this episode studies the historical moment in which Shakespeare was writing about Venetian religious and cultural composition, how Shakespeare grapples with religious and cultural identity and how the text of this controversial play written in 1596 can teach us about empathy, here in the 21st century.

This episode is hosted by Meagan Harris, Programs & Marketing Associate at Shakespeare Dallas. Our guests are Bishop Ackerman, Assisting Anglo-Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth; Professor Moss, Associate Professor of English at Southern Methodist University; and Rabbi Stern, Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas.

Shakespeare Dallas is a non-profit theater company located in Dallas, Texas. To keep this podcast and other educational programming free and accessible, donate here: https://www.shakespearedallas.org/give/