The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show!

In our second summer "mini-sode," Jess talks us through Thomas Middleton's wacky play, The Witch.

In our first "mini-sode" of the summer, we revisit a chunk of our conversation with Patrick Aaron Harris that didn't make it into the Merchant 101 episode...because it was about Hamlet - the American Shakespeare Center's Hamlet, to be precise - and we bird-walked deep into our FEELINGS about it.

In which Jess tells Aubrey all about The Athiest's Tragedy, a wacky, little-known early modern play she read in preparation for her PhD exams. It's wild, you guys. #graveyardsnogging

Whether you’re new to the show or a long-time listener, we invite you to listen to the trailer we cooked up for our digital exhibition at this year’s Shakespeare Association of America annual conference in Washington, DC. We are soooooooo excited to be included in this amazing conference and cannot wait to meet everyone we’ve been following on Twitter.

Jess and Aubrey introduce themselves, their personal stories, interests, and scholarly work, and discuss what led them down the primrose path to podcasting together. They also go "birdwalking" into some other topics, and ultimately choose the first play to discuss in the official beginning of the podcast, Episode 001. If you want to get to know your hosts and why they think they have anything to unique offer to The Conversation (spoiler alert: they do!), this is the episode for you.

In this episode we discuss Romeo and Juliet and how beautifully raunchy it is, ET CETERA (you'll know what that means when you listen). We also roll out two new features, "The Rhetorical Device of the Week" (this week it's litotes) and "The Burbage Break" (this week it's about Burbage Breaks). Also, Aubrey was a dummy and didn't turn on her special microphone. Oops.

In this episode, Aubrey and Jess attempt (and fail) to summarize "Hamlet" in only five minutes; we discuss the Revenge Tragedy genre, the "ur-Hamlet," and overarching themes in "Hamlet" (i.e. whether or not that dude is crazy). We introduce a game, "Choices Were Made," and discuss our Shakes-Bubble-adjacent projects. We also may or may not go off on a brief "Mulan" tangent.

This week we learn that "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is layered like an artichoke; the Rhetorical Device of the Week is alliteration; the Burbage Break is about the nebulous chain of custody of a text (aka early modern print culture); Jess and Aubrey try (again) and fail (again) to summarize the play in under five minutes. We play "Line Roulette" and Jess attempts to argue how nuts encapsulate the meaning behind the play. And, spoiler alert: "the text is a lie, and nothing is real," and there is *definitely* a dog in Midsummer.

For our fourth episode, we discuss "As You Like It" as we love it; Jess and Aubrey give up even trying to summarize the play in under five minutes; the Rhetorical Device of the Week is anastrophe; the Burbage Break is about the Green World; Shepherds are TOTALLY a trope (that Jess rants about in a new game, "The Feelings Corner"), and Orlando has no idea how to talk to girls.

Macbeth is the topic of this, our fifth episode. Jess and Aubrey gush about how much they love this play and throw the five-minute summary rule to the wind; the Rhetorical Device of the Week is symploce; the Burbage Break is about the First Folio and "authoritative text." We play another round of "Choices Were Made" and learn that, contrary to popular belief, this play is *definitely* not cursed and Thomas Middleton may have written the best parts (aka the witchy parts).

This week we dive deep into the fascinating, entertaining, and sometimes surprising scholarship and projects from the biennial Blackfriars Conference in Staunton, Virginia. The Rhetorical Device of the Week is tmesis and the Burbage Break provides some much-needed conference etiquette reminders. We discuss the word "nuncle," the significance of stage gestures, American Sign Language and Spanish translations of Shakespeare, and even Monica Lewinsky. We also get *a bit* mushy about why art is important in the world and why we choose to make it. This one's a little longer than usual because *feelings.* #SorryNotSorry  (Featuring discussions of work by Matt Kozusko, Paul Menzer, Tiffany Stern, Wendy Wall and William West, Lindsey Snyder, Beth Burns and Farah Karim-Cooper, Jacqueline Vanhoutte, Bill Rauch, and all the lovely folks at Fundacion Shakespeare Argentina.)

The sixth play in our 101 series focuses on The Tempest, aka Shakespeare's thinly-veiled retirement announcement. The Rhetorical Device of the Week is chiasmus; the Burbage Break issues a correction as well as advice on how to choose a Shakespeare text that best suits your needs. This episode is also the closest we've ever come to meeting our own, arbitrary, 5-minute summary limit. We discuss the uniqueness of The Tempest as a play in the romance genre, as well as that *pesky* issue of colonialism that permeates the story and what we as scholars and artists might do to address it. Finally, even we at Hurly Burly cannot hide from the ongoing revelations of sexual harrassment and misconduct in the workplace: our Shakes-Bubble wrap-up addresses one such incident in our corner of academia and how we might use Shakespeare in the classroom (or the playhouse) to catalyze these difficult and necessary discussions.

Who the F is Morton?! We get to the bottom of this question and many others as we explore Richard III, one of Shakespeare's most famous history plays and most infamous villains. The Rhetorical Device of the Week is pleonasm; the Burbage Break is all about Open Source Shakespeare; we give you a quick and dirty run down of Team York and Team Lancaster before delving into the five-minute summary (which clocks in at an actual five minutes this time!) because the English Monarchy couldn't be bothered to switch up their name game for literal centuries and it's highly confusing. We also discuss the differences between Shakespeare's portrayal of Richard III versus facts we actually know about the historical person, and we have a few *major developments* to announce in this week's Shakes-Bubble Gossip.

There is no taming this episode because this week we're talking Taming of the Shrew and all of its problems and glories (and adaptations!). The Rhetorical Device of the Week is anthimeria (pronunciation debatable); the Burbage Break is all about the "problem play" genre and why Shrew might fall into that category. Aubrey and Jess reveal their issues with the text and what it is about this particular story that makes it both compelling for modern audiences and utterly frustrating. Our game this week is Choices Were Made, the Film Adaptation Edition, which basically serves as an excuse to talk about everyone's favorite 90s rom-com, "10 Things I Hate About You." And as if this episode weren't bonkers enough, Jess and Aubrey get into a heated argument about whether the character Mandella (*not* Myrcella) is delusional or just over-enthusiastic in her love of Shakespeare. The ShakesBubble Gossip features a throwback to the Blackfriars Conference and Patrick Aaron Harris's paper about the use of rings in The Merchant of Venice. #tomahawksofenthusiasm #castanetsofagreement

We jump into our tenth episode with an exploration of a beloved twin comedy, Twelfth Night. The Rhetorical Device of the Week is ploce; the Burbage Break is all about the clowns of the King's Men, Will Kempe and Robert Armin, and how Shakespeare wrote clown characters for their specific strengths. In our summary of the play we learn just how much homoerotic anxiety happens when you combine a twin trope with a pants-role, and Aubrey rants about a particularly annoying production choice in our game of the week, Feelings Corner. Jess has a really important announcement for our Shakes-Bubble Gossip, and we also show some love for our friends at Motley Shakes. We also take a brief-but-interesting left turn into the weird, whimsical world of Thomas Heywood.

This week we discover - or re-discover - just how fan-freakin-tastic (#tmesis) Julius Caesar is. The Rhetorical Device of the Week is aporia. Did you already know that? We think not. (That was aporia.) Our Burbage Break is all about early modern blood effects (spoiler alert: it's kinda gross) and the game this week is Line Roulette. And, because Caesar itself is such a concise, beautifully constructed play, we even manage to summarize it in under five mintes! In Tips and Tidbits we learn how this play even came to be in the Folio in the first place, and why this play is always timely and a useful play to use when teaching rhetoric. Addtionally, we provide you with a last-minute gift guide for the Shakespeareans in your life and we spill some *major* tea in our Shakes-Bubble Gossip feature. Happy holidays, Word Nerds! See you in 2018!

In our first 201 episode, we examine how to interpret alliteration (the Rhetorcal Device of the Week, version 2.0) as a reader and an actor, and we delve into source texts. Then, in a twist *no one* saw coming, what seems like a straightforward review of the Arden 3 edition of Midsummer turns into an all-out interrogation of an editorial emendation of the word "strange" into "swarthe." Chaos and ridiculous nerdiness ensue, and we learn what palaeography and minims are along the way. Once we get back on track, we discuss the debate between scholars regarding Shakespeare's occasion for writing A Midsummer Night's Dream as well as some issues that might help you make the text relevant to a 21st century audience. In our ShakesBubble Gossip, we list a bunch of Midsummer productions** coming your way in early 2018, and briefly allude to a twitter controversy surrounding Othello (don't ask - you'll understand when you get there). **Links to referenced productions are on the website page for this episode at hurlyburlyshakespeareshow.com/podcast**

This week we are joined by self-proclaimed Titus Andronicus expert, Catie Osborn, to talk about all things Titus! The Rhetorical Device of the Week is accumulatio; the Burbage Break (brought to you by Catie) analyzes the Peacham Drawing* and what it tells us about Early Modern staging conditions; Catie explains in great detail why everyone should give Titus a second look; and in our game of Line Roulette we put Catie's knowledge to the test. She wins at everything, btw. In our ShakesBubble Gossip we learn what's happening in the ASC's Actor's Renaissance Season and that a MOVIE of TWELFTH NIGHT is set to be released on Jan. 6 (aka the actual twelfth night!). Thanks so much to our special guest! *Photo posted on our website at hurlyburlyshakespeareshow.com/podcast

This episode runs a little long (but so does King Lear's march toward death, so deal with it) because we devote a ton of time to figuring out why people connect with this particular tragedy. The Rhetorical Device of the Week is antimetabole; in the Burbage Break we attempt to issue a correction and end up making it works (sorry Mya) and discuss the phenomenon of "early modern facial blindness;" our Tips and Tidbits delve into the different versions of this text and why they matter; and we use our game, Choices Were Made, to gripe about (mostly) *terrible* Lear production choices. Is Edgar actually Jesus? Should Lear end up in a diaper? Listen and find out.

Two white girls trying to discuss the racial quagmire that is Othello...what could go wrong? You'll just have to listen to find out (and we sincerely hope the answer is "nothing" because we try really hard to be conscientious about our words, you guys). The Rhetorical Device of the Week is epanorthosis; the Burbage Break is all about the early modern definition of "moor" and how early modern actors conveyed and interpreted "blackness" on stage. In our Tips and Tidbits we discuss the idea of "color conscious casting" and why it is NEVER ok to whitewash the title character; and in our ShakesBubble Gossip we return to the twitter storm that started it all, and the awesomeness that is a Noh adaptation of Othello. Oof. It's a lot, y'all. Buckle up.