A tongue-in-cheek reflection of a debut novelist on the social peril of getting published.

The story of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is adapted and revised by James Ijames in his play Fat Ham, which ran from 12 May to 31 July 2022 at The Public Theater, coproduced by the National Black Theatre. Ijames’s play, which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for drama, plays with and departs from the plot of Hamlet to explore Black manhood, the fam…[Read more]

Examines Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and the epistemological challenges of differentiating twins in light of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, specifically his theories of substance and individuation.

The Longleat Manuscript, the earliest known illustration of a Shakespearean play, contains three main components: a passage from the beginning of Titus Andronicus where Tamora pleads for her son’s life, lines from Aaron’s final confession, and a hand-drawn image that, apparently, corresponds with neither passage fully. Amid other mysteries, the…[Read more]

While working on my recent novel, “The Bard & The Barman: An Account of Shakespeare’s Lost Years,” I endeavored to write a sequel to Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” which left the characters frozen in time. No one is going to confuse my work with the Bard’s, but I welcome any feedback on this play, written in contemporary lingo, rather than…[Read more]

While working on my recent novel, “The Bard & The Barman: An Account of Shakespeare’s Lost Years,” I endeavored to write a sequel to Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” which left the characters frozen in time. No one is going to confuse my work with the Bard’s, but I welcome any feedback on this play, written in contemporary lingo, rather than…[Read more]

In his response to the Dauphin, his threats before Harfleur’s walls, and his St. Crispin’s Day oration, Henry V deploys what we might call proleptic histories of the present as a means of rhetorical persuasion. Henry invites his audiences, that is, to imagine themselves in the future, understanding the present as part of their own history. Hen…[Read more]

“‘Shakespeare in Prison’: A South African Social Justice Alternative” interrogates the validity of certain ‘Shakespeare in prison’ initiatives. In so doing, it engages in ongoing criticism of arts outreach projects and their effectiveness, while highlighting the role of anti-mass-incarceration activists who denounce such well-meaning efforts as…[Read more]

This article examines The Tempest in light of artists’ renderings of the play in New Orleans, reflecting on anti-Black racism in Shakespeare’s play and in the Deep South.

This article explores how certain dramatists in early modern England and in Spain, specifically Ben Jonson and Miguel de Cervantes (with much more emphasis on the former), pursued authority over texts by claiming as their own a new realm which had not been available – or, more accurately, as prominently available – to playwrights before: the sta…[Read more]

Comparative studies have revealed uncanny similarities between the theatrical cultures of Shakespearean England and Golden Age Spain, and in particular between the Elizabethan amphitheaters and the Spanish corrales de comedia (courtyard playhouses). Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, Spain’s (and, in particular, Madrid’s) courtyard the…[Read more]

Going to the theater was one of the most distinctive-as well as conspicuous-cultural activities to take place regularly in early modern european cities. Precisely because so many people from all walks of life partook of this highly visible pastime, public theaters became spaces wherein social and cultural boundaries between spectators were easily…[Read more]

This article explores the change in dynamics between matter and style in Shakespeare’s way of depicting distress on the early modern stage. During his early years as a dramatist, Shakespeare wrote plays filled with violence and death, but language did not lose its composure at the sight of blood and destruction; it kept on marching to the beat o…[Read more]

One of the major differences between the otherwise very similar commercial theatrical cultures of early modern Spain and England was that, whereas in England female roles were performed by young, cross-dressed boys, in Spain female performers were prominent in their industry. indeed, actresses in Spain played an active role in the creative process…[Read more]

“Shamanistic Shakespeare: Korea’s Colonization of Hamlet” offers a timely reminder about the dangers of imposing a reformulated national myth on international Shakespeare productions. Focusing on a London performance of Korea’s Yohangza Theatre Company’s shamanized Hamlet, this case study invites far broader consideration of the readability of glo…[Read more]

This article is an examination of the preliminary material of Shakespeare’s First Folio. With the correct order of the preliminary leaves unknown, the sequence of the first 18 pages has long puzzled scholars. Over the last 400 years, binders have assembled the gathering differently, spawning a variety of order types. Using several data sources, i…[Read more]

In 1 Henry IV, Falstaff enacts his histrionic mock deposition scene, only to be usurped by England’s true heir, Prince Hal. Irate at his actorly demotion, Falstaff praises his own performance skills, while suggesting that, if found lacking, he should receive a punishment befitting his knightly status. Likening Falstaff to small game hanging in a s…[Read more]