A Teenager's Take on Shakespeare

Welcome, listeners, to episode 2 of Season 5 of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare!In this episode, I talk with Valerie Clayman Pye about her amazing books, audience engagement and subjectivity, embodied performance, and much, much more. Valerie Clayman Pye is an actor, director, author, and academic who specializes in making Shakespeare accessible and training other artists to do the same. She is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Arts Management at LIU Post, where she teaches acting, voice and speech, and Shakespeare in Performance and is Associate Faculty with Theatrical Intimacy Education, a consulting group that specializes in researching, developing, and teaching best practices for staging theatrical intimacy. A professional actor and director, Valerie’s work has reached audiences in over twenty countries. Her book, Unearthing Shakespeare: Embodied Performance and the Globe (Routledge) is the first book to consider how the unique properties of Shakespeare’s theatre can help train actors as well as enliven performances of Shakespeare’s plays. She is the co-editor of Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice: Perspectives on Activating the Actor (with Hillary Haft Bucs), and Shakespeare and Tourism (with Robert Ormsby). Her essays have appeared in Shakespeare, Teaching Shakespeare, PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, New England Theatre Journal, Theatre Topics, and several essay collections. When she isn’t focusing on Shakespeare and devising new work of her own, Valerie has worked extensively on new play development, alongside writers such as Reginald Rose (Twelve Angry Men). A 2018-20 LabWorks Artist at the New Victory Theatre in NYC, Valerie was the lead creative artist on "Shakespeare’s Stars", an immersive, multi-media, multi-sensory performance for babies and their caregivers (Spellbound Theatre), which was featured in The Wall Street Journal and had its Off-Broadway debut at the New Victory Theatre in May 2023. Her most recent book, with Robert Myles, is Innovation & Digital Theatremaking: Rethinking Theatre with ‘The Show Must Go Online’ (Routledge). You can find Valerie on Twitter at @valerie_pye and on her website ⁠www.valerieclaymanpye.com⁠. Do check out her books ‘Unearthing Shakespeare: Embodied Shakespeare at the Globe’ and 'Innovation & Digital Theatremaking: Rethinking Theatre with "The Show Must Go Online”’ (a collaboration with Robert Myles)!Enjoy!

Welcome, listeners, to the first episode of Season 5, in which we’ll be taking a deep dive into Shakespeare’s texts with various scintillating minds! In this episode, I talk with David Sterling Brown about his book, Shakespeare’s White Others; we explore who the white other is, crossing the intraracial colour line, the decomposition of white masculinity, and much, much more. Dr. David Sterling Brown, Associate Professor of English at Trinity College, is author of Shakespeare’s White Others and the forthcoming Hood Pedagogy: Teaching Shakespeare from Within —both with Cambridge University Press. Brown has published numerous peer-reviewed and public-facing articles, most recently an article in The Conversation, and he has delivered myriad invited talks since joining the profession in 2015. In 2023, he launched his “Visualizing Race Virtually” art exhibition that showcases 39 Folger Library digital images. You can access his virtual-reality art gallery and explore his contributions to the humanities at www.DavidSterlingBrown.com. In addition to being a member of the Race Before Race Executive Board, he sits on the editorial boards for Shakespeare Bulletin and Shakespeare Survey and he is an American Shakespeare Center Board of Trustees member. Brown is also a Curatorial Team member for The Racial Imaginary Institute, founded by Claudia Rankine. You can find David on Twitter at @_theBrownprint_ and on Instagram at @BrownprintLLC. Enjoy!

Welcome to A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare’s fourth Monologue Roundup, wrapping up the Teen Take Shax Miscellany. This has been such a fun season to record and share with you all — with no one set theme uniting the episodes, we’ve covered a lot of different ground with these plays, from the spooky to the festive and everything in between. Here David Johnson and Melissa Barrett, Ellicia Elliott, Drs Danielle Rosvally and Trevor Boffone, Stephanie Crugnola, Blioux Kirkby and Nat Kennedy have chosen various extracts from Shakespeare that reflect the amazing discussions we had. Thank you so much to all of you for your contributions! To all of these, I will as usual add my own little something as a relish to conclude our audio performance. This season has definitely been longer than any other, but I’ve come to realise that as a creator and a teenager with a great deal of life experience to gain at the moment, I can't confine myself to meticulous deadlines the way I might like to. As such, I want to thank you all for your patience, and I hope you’re ready for Season 5! In the meantime, do check out all of our social media handles! You can find Sun and Moon Theatre on Twitter at @sunmoontheatre, on Facebook at @sunandmoontheatre and on Instagram at @sunandmoontheatr (their website is sunandmoontheatreuk.com); Ellicia on Twitter at @ElliciaElliott, on Instagram at @ellicia_elliott and on her website elliciaelliott.com; Yassified Shakespeare on Instagram and TikTok at @yassifiedshax and on yassifiedshakespeare.com; Steph’s podcast Protest Too Much on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok at @p2mpod, and The Sirrah Sisters at @thesirrahsisters on Instagram, @SirrahSisters on Twitter, The Sirrah Sisters on FaceBook and @thesirrahsisters3888 on YouTube. You can find the podcast on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and on Twitter at @TeenTakeShax, and my guests’ handles will be in the descriptions of their respective episodes. Enjoy!

Welcome, everyone, to Season 4, Episode 6 of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! In this episode, I chat with Olga Blagodatskih about her work in the Moscow Shake-scene, the way she approaches Shakespeare’s texts and how small roles can have a big impact. Olga Blagodatskikh is a bilingual actor, voice-over artist, and educator. Passion for classical English theatre brought her to London to study Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where she played the French King in King John, Jacques in As You Like It and Lady Macbeth, and received the RADA Shakespeare Platinum Awards. Olga is founder and host of the international Shakespeare Play Reading Club, and co-founder of Shakespeare Theatre Lab Moscow. Her Shakespearean credits include Richard II and Romeo and Juliet with 60 Hour Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well with The Show Must Go Online and a great number of online productions played from cues only with Shake-scene Shakespeare company. Also, Olga has recently made her directorial debut on the Moscow stage with The Merchant of Venice. You can find Olga on Instagram at @olga_blagod and on Facebook (just search Olga Blagodatskikh). You can also find Shakespeare Play Reading Club and Shakespeare Theatre Lab on Facebook. Enjoy!

Welcome back, listeners, to A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! It’s been a while, but we’re back in business with lots of exciting plans for 2024. In this episode, I (host Annabelle Higgins) chat with Blioux Kirkby and Nat Kennedy about their company, The Sirrah Sisters, from their beginnings and philosophies to their shows and rehearsal practice. The Sirrah Sisters started in 2018, after a casting call out was made online for female and non binary performers for a production of Twelfth Night, performing in a fringe theatre in New Cross. The director turned out to be very uninvolved in the production and wasn’t helpful at all! Therefore, the cast took it upon themself to direct and support each other and The Sirrah Sisters was formed! They have performed for a local festival over the years and love to create accessible, fun Shakespeare and always manage to find the light and joy during their process. You can find The Sirrah Sisters at @thesirrahsisters on Instagram, @SirrahSisters on Twitter, The Sirrah Sisters on FaceBook and @thesirrahsisters3888 on YouTube. Enjoy!

Welcome to the Christmas Special of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! In this episode, two burning passions of mine converge as Stephanie Crugnola and I discuss which Shakespeare plays would be the best on ice, giving three podium places as well as some honourable mentions. From the heart-rendingly tragic to the light-heartedly comic, helplessly romantic and thoroughly dramatic, we cover staging possibilities, costumes, lighting, choreography and more! Steph hosts the Protest too Much podcast: a Shakespeare showdown with a new guest each week. She also runs Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project, a company focused on interactive educational performance opportunities and one-rehearsal pop-up productions. You can find Steph’s podcast Protest Too Much on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok at @p2mpod. While you’re there, don’t forget to check out A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and on Twitter at @TeenTakeShax. Enjoy!

Welcome to the November episode of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! In this episode, I, host Annabelle Higgins, discuss social media and early modern literature, revitalising Shakespeare for today’s audiences and Yassifying the Bard’s work with Danielle Rosvally and Trevor Boffone. Trevor Boffone went viral in 2019 and hasn't looked back. His work using TikTok and Instagram with his students has been featured on Good Morning America, ABC News, Inside Edition, and Access Hollywood, among numerous national media platforms. His work as a social media expert has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Forbes, The Atlantic, and NPR. Trevor has published two books on social media and popular culture, and has two forthcoming books exploring theatre marketing on social media. Oh, and he does the Shakespeare thing, too. He is the co-editor of Shakespeare & Latinidad and is currently co-writing a book on Yassified Shakespeare. Danielle Rosvally is less cool (in her own words) than Trevor, but hoping to someday attain his relative level of awesomeness. She is a fight director, actor, dramaturge, and direction and is an assistant professor of theatre at the University at Buffalo. Danielle is primarily a Shakespearean and has written one book on Shakespeare as an economic value, co-edited a collection about what “liveness” means in early modern theatre, and published articles about Shakespeare, labor, economies, and social media in journals such as Theatre Topics, the Early Modern Studies Journal, and Shakespeare Bulletin. She’s currently co-editing a journal devoted to exploring issues of Shakespeare and Contingency, and co-writing a book about Yassified Shakespeare. You can find Yassified Shakespeare on Instagram and TikTok at @yassifiedshax and on yassifiedshakespeare.com. You can also find A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare at @TeenTakeShax on Twitter and @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare on Instagram. Enjoy!

Welcome to the October Episode of the Teen Take Shax Miscellany! Halloween is coming up and A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare is getting into the spooky spirit with Ellicia Elliot in this bewitching conversation. In this episode, we discuss ghosts, spirits, witches, and all the unholy terrors Shakespeare crammed his theatre with across his impressive career (well, as many as we could, at least). Ellicia Elliott (she/her) is the Founding Artistic Director of The Rude Mechanicals, Eastern Washington State’s premier Shakespeare theatre company. She holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Idaho, an MA in Theatre Production, and a BA in Language Arts and Theatre Arts Education, both from Central Washington University. Her most recent work includes serving as dramaturg and directing consultant for Lauren Gunderson's A Room in the Castle (a new take on Hamlet, from the points of view of Gertrude and Ophelia), directing Shakespeare's As You Like It and The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse (The Rude Mechanicals), Ada and the Engine by Lauren Gunderson (Walla Walla University), and Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (Woodward Shakespeare Festival, Fresno, California). In the Summer of 2020, Ellicia produced Idris Goodwin's FREE PLAY: Open Source Scripts Toward an Antiracist Tomorrow and created an online season for The Rude Mechanicals, available on YouTube, of new works and Shakespeare-inspired pieces focusing on equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. Before starting The Rude Mechanicals, Ellicia directed over fifty productions in educational theatre programs, community theatres, juvenile justice centers, and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Ellicia is currently a curriculum consultant for middle school and high school theatre educators. She is a proud member of artEquity and the Educational Theatre Association (EDTA). Ellicia's newest role in theatre education is as an adjudicator/respondent for organizations such as EDTA and the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Recognitions for Ellicia's work include Directors Lab West (2020), Shakespeare's Globe Directing Studio (2016), artEquity Facilitator Training with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2015), the Teaching Artist Training (TAT) Lab Fellowship with Seattle Rep (2011), The Outstanding Educator award (2014), two Educational Outreach awards (2008, 2012), and Outstanding Direction of a Musical (2008), all from The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, and the Theatre of Puget Sound’s Young Playwright’s Award (2001). You can find Ellicia on Twitter at @ElliciaElliott, on Instagram at @ellicia_elliott and on her website elliciaelliott.com. Don’t forget to check out A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare at @TeenTakeShax on Twitter and @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare on Instagram, and please do rate the show. Enjoy!

Welcome, listeners, to Season 4 of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare, the Teen Take Shax Miscellany! Thank you for your patience as I’ve been busy dealing with the academic side of life. It’s good to be back! Now, without further ado, today's guests are David Johnson and Melissa Barrett, artistic directors and actor managers of Sun and Moon Theatre. In this episode, we discuss Midsummer, Much Ado, Romeo and Juliet, Folios, Quartos and more! Based in the South West, Sun & Moon Theatre specialise in Shakespeare: their ethos is 'making Shakespeare for all' focussing on producing accessible and entertaining productions for a wide range of audiences, always asking themselves: "why this play now?" They work with original text, using Quarto and First Folio scripts in all of their productions, as well as in workshops and coaching sessions. You can find Sun and Moon Theatre on Twitter (it will always be Twitter to me) at @sunmoontheatre, on Facebook at @sunandmoontheatre and on Instagram at @sunandmoontheatre. Their website is sunandmoontheatreuk.com. Don’t forget to keep up with A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare on Twitter at @TeenTakeShax and on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare! Enjoy!

Welcome, one and all, to A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare’s third Monologue Roundup — the culmination of The Genre-l Idea! This has been a season of insights and exploration, and this showcase of some of Shakespeare’s best comic and tragic stuff plus all things in between encapsulates the spirit of our discussions. Here Victoria Rae Sook, Marshall Garrett, Elyse Sharp, Sally McLean, Carla Della Gatta, Mandy Hughes and Fenna Capelle have chosen texts that reflect their respective genres the best in their opinions, and tell us all why. Thank you so much to all of you! To these stars, I add my own monologue in honour of Robin, the wonderful son of Victoria Rae Sook who arrived into the world soon after his mother’s episode. Welcome to the wonderful world of Shakespeare, little one! Do listen till the end of the episode for an important announcement about the future of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare this year; the long and the short of it is that I’ll be releasing monthly episodes until further notice due to having exams coming up in a few months time that I must dedicate myself to preparing for. Don’t worry though — there’s still plenty of Shakespeare coming your way! Check out the podcast on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and on Twitter at @TeenTakeShax, plus all our incredible guests: you can find their socials in the descriptions of their individual episodes. Enjoy!

Welcome, one and all, to the final interview episode of The Genre-l Idea! After tackling the First Folio categorisations and later Victorian sub-genres of Shakespeare’s plays, we’re going to have a look at Shakespeare’s poetry. With me is a friend of the podcast back again for another episode, Fenna Capelle. In this episode, we discuss love vs desire, poetry vs performance and the relationship between Shakespeare poetry and plays. Fenna Capelle is a 20 year old poet, student, linguist and actress based in the Netherlands. She recently graduated at University College Roosevelt with a bachelor's degree in linguistics, antiquity, literature and rhetoric. She is the author of two books of poetry, Oblivion and of Masks and Mirrors (the latter recently published), and Poor Death, a third book of poems that will hopefully be on the market soon. Her acting work mainly consisted of work at her university's theatre company, where she took her place both as an actress and director. She's also a co-founder of Wide and Universal Theatre, a group of international actors that come together for online zoom productions - William Shakespeare's King John (2022) and Prince of Camelot, an original production (2023) You can find Fenna on Instagram at @fennacapelle and @f.capelle_poems, Twitter at @fennacapelle and on YouTube at Fenna Capelle. Enjoy!

Welcome to Episode 5 of The Genre-l Idea on A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! This week we’re talking about Shakespeare’s romance plays, and my brilliant guest is Mandy Hughes. In this episode, we discuss the overlap between problem plays and romances, familial reunion and the relationships between fathers and daughters (plus the roles of daughters in general, because let’s face it, they’re INCREDIBLE characters). Mandy Hughes is an academic, actor, director, and producer. She was the founder and master of company at Rocket City Shakespeare and has worked on theatre productions at the high school, college, community, and semi-professional levels. She is currently completing a PhD dissertation on Shakespeare and the gothic in 21st-century performance. You can find Mandy on Twitter at @MandyLHughes and on Mastodon at @MandyLHughes@zirk.us. Do check out the podcast on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and on Twitter at @TeenTakeShax! Enjoy!

Welcome, listeners, to the fourth episode of season 3, The Genre-l Idea! Today I, host Annabelle Higgins, will be chatting problem plays with Dr Carla Della Gatta. In this episode, we discuss Frederick Boas’ initial definition, social critique onstage and what kind of problems make a problem play. Carla Della Gatta is a theatre historian and performance theorist whose research focuses on ethnicity, aurality, and gender and sexuality. She is currently Assistant Professor of English at Florida State University, where she teaches Critical Theory, Shakespeare, Latinx theatre, and LGBTQ theatre. She co-edited Shakespeare and Latinidad, a collection of essays and interviews with twenty-five contributors, and her monograph, Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater is open access (free to download!) with University of Michigan Press. She built and maintains the archive of Latinx theatrical adaptation, LatinxShakespeares.Org, which includes over 275 productions and adaptations of Shakespeare and other canonical works. You can find Carla on Twitter at @CarlaDellaGatta. Don’t forget to check out the podcast on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and on Twitter at @TeenTakeShax! Enjoy!

Welcome to episode 3 of The Genre-l Idea on A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! Today I have the fantastic Sally McLean on with me to talk about Shakespeare’s history plays. In this episode, we discuss how the Tudor setting of Shakespeare’s day influenced Shakespeare’s work, the relationship between dramatic and contemporary history and the Bard’s calculated balance of the political with the familial. An award-winning, multi-hyphenate creative, Sally McLean began her work in the entertainment biz in her mid-teens as an actor and has since performed lead, guest and supporting roles in numerous Australian, US and UK film, theatre and television productions. A graduate of The Actors Institute UK, Sally’s notable screen acting credits include the lead role of “Angie Powers” in the BAFTA Award-winning BBC mini series Bootleg, lead guest role of “Stacy” in the AACTA Award-winning ABC TV series Utopia and recurring guest roles of “Miss Giddens” in the ABC/CBBC TV series The Worst Year of My Life – Again! and “Barb” in the USA Sony/AMC TV series, Preacher. Sally created her own boutique production business, Incognita Enterprises, under the Honorary Patronage of Oscar® nominated actor, Sir Nigel Hawthorne KB, CBE in 1997 – an association that continued until his passing in 2001. She is currently the Creator/Director and lead ensemble member of the multi award-winning digital series Shakespeare Republic which has been officially selected and screened at over 110 international film festivals, nominated for over 100 awards and won over 60 awards to date including Best Director, Best Web Series, Best Actress (for Sally personally) and Best Ensemble Cast in numerous festivals and industry awards. Her Shakespeare short film, Speaking Daggers, a spin off from the series, was selected for 22 international film festivals, including the Academy Award® accredited St Kilda Film Festival – and won 3 awards, as well as a “Highly Commended” Finalist nod from Sir Kenneth Branagh in his role as Jury President for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Shakespeare Shorts Film Festival in the UK in 2017. Her work with Shakespeare Republic has been the subject of several academic presentations and plenary panels at Early Modern Literature and Shakespeare seminars and conferences in Australia, the UK and USA from 2016 to now. Her first published work on Shakespeare, an essay exploring her methodology behind Shakespeare Republic and Shakespeare performance in general, was published in the UK by Routledge Press in 2020 as part of the academic essay collection, Playfulness In Shakespearean Adaptations. The third season of Shakespeare Republic is currently being taught at Syracuse University, USA, has been discussed in papers presented at the Shakespeare Association of America Conference (USA) and BritGrad Conference (UK) and is also further explored in the Arden Shakespeare collection, Lockdown Shakespeare: New Evolutions in Performance and Adaptation, published in July 2022. She additionally teaches Shakespeare as an industry guest teacher as part of the Howard Fine Acting Studio faculty in Melbourne, Australia. Check out Sally’s socials here; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialsallymclean Instagram: https://instagram.com/incognitagal/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/incognitagal Official Acting Website: www.sallymclean.com Official Production Website: www.incognitaenterprises.com Don’t forget to also check out A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and on Twitter at @TeenTakeShax. Enjoy!

Welcome, listeners, to episode 2 of The Genre-l Idea! Today we’ll be covering Shakespearean tragedies in all their gob-smacking, grief-stricken, gory glory with Elyse Sharp. In this episode, we talk about just what tragedy means in relation to comedy, what’s truly tragic about all the blood and death and how we define tragedy in modern terms. Elyse Sharp (she/her) is an actor, director, producer, and amateur Shakespeare scholar based in Sacramento, CA. She is also a Shakespeare text coach and has been a guest lecturer on Shakespeare at several high schools throughout California. She has a life-goal to perform in all plays of Shakespeare's canon at least once. So far, she's done 15 out of 39. When she's not thinking about Shakespeare, she can be found working on new plays and theatre for young audiences. For more, visit elysesharp.com. She is also one of the hosts of Shakespeare Anyone podcast, a fantastically academic show that delves deep into Shakespeare’s texts from different critical perspectives minus the Bardolatry. Check out @shakespeareanyonepod on Instagram and shakespeareanyone.com for Elyse’s podcast which she co-hosts. You can also find her on Instagram and Twitter at @elysesharp. Enjoy!

Welcome, listeners, to Season 3 of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare, The Genre-l Idea. This season, host Annabelle Higgins will be talking with guests about 'tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited', in Polonius’ words. Today there’s not one but two incredible guests, Victoria Rae Sook and Marshall B Garrett. In this episode, we discuss what makes a Shakespearean comedy, how Shakespeare generates laughs and what happens when comedy goes too far. Victoria (Director/Choreographer/Actor/Producer) is a two-time Drama Desk Award Nominee as the Artistic Director and Founder of Food of Love Productions. She is an active board member of Bristol Riverside Theatre where she offers her dramaturgy services. She often choreographed for the OnComm-Award-Winning The Show Must Go Online and raised funds for the five-time Tony Award Winning revival of Company. A proud member of AEA, SAG-AFTRA, and an SDC Associate, favorite shows include Mamma Mia, Grease, Shake & Bake: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Midsummer: a Banquet, Twelfth Night, Carrie, and Gallathea. Victoria has also worked in production at the Public Theater and remains, to this day, on their over hire list for when they need a hand. She is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and The University of South Florida. Victoria resides in Manhattan with her husband and is excited for her next production: baby Robin (named after Puck) debuting in June. Marshall B Garrett is a theatre director and teacher based near Baltimore, Maryland. He has taught at universities, high schools, and theatres across the state, and directed around the United States, including Sweet Tea Shakespeare, Hoosier Shakes, Rubber City Theatre, and Baltimore Shakespeare Factory. He is the artistic director of the Susquehanna Shakespeare Ensemble, where he will be directing The Winter's Tale this summer. You can find Victoria on Twitter and Instagram at @victoriaraesook or @foodoflovenyc or on her website www.VictoriaRaeSook.com, and Marshall on Twitter at @marshallbornotb or on his website www.marshallbgarrett.com, plus his upcoming podcast on Twitter at @ShakesCannon. Don’t forget to also check out A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare’s social media pages; we’re on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and Twitter at @TeenTakeShax. Enjoy!

Welcome to Season 2’s Monologue Roundup of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! In this episode, guests Stephanie Crugnola, Emily Carding, Alice Bloomer, Dominic Brewer, Danielle Farrow and Rob Myles perform monologues from one of their character choices, reciting the very words that show us why they love them. This episode features friends, Romans, kings, queens and princes of all kinds, a true celebration of Shakespeare’s most character-defining moments in his plays. To all of these, I, host Annabelle Higgins, have added my own monologue from a famous Shakespearean teen whose words and story developed my love of Shakespeare and made this podcast possible. After a two week break, A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare will be back with Season 3, which will be all about genre! Comedies, tragedies, histories, romances, problem plays; you name it, we’ll talk about it. This promises to be a fascinating season, listeners, so till then do catch up with the last two seasons of the podcast and check us out on Instagram at @ateenagerstakeonshakespeare and Twitter at @TeenTakeShax. Enjoy!

Welcome to the final episode of Season 2, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, of A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! Today’s phenomenal guest is Robert Myles; I, host Annabelle Higgins, chatted with him about the noblest and most Stoic Roman of them all, the amateur dramatist who sees a dream about a donkey’s head as perfect for a theatrical production and a jealous king entangled in his own devastating beliefs. Robert Myles is an actor, writer and director. Over his career in Shakespeare, Rob has played over 30 Shakespearean roles in off-west-end and regional touring productions. He directed the 36 First Folio plays of Shakespeare, one a week every week for nine months, with The Show Must Go Online, which he co-founded at the start of the 2020 pandemic. TSMGO became a multi-award-winning pandemic digital theatre project that brought together over 500 actors and creatives from 60 countries. His book, co-written with Dr. Valerie Clayman Pye, Innovation in Digital Theatre: Rethinking Theatre with 'The Show Must Go Online', is forthcoming with Routledge. He is the creator of The Shakespeare Deck, a powerful, portable text-work tool for actors and creatives, and host of the Owning Shakespeare Podcast, with guests including Adjoa Andoh and Paterson Joseph. He has spoken at Harvard University, taught Shakespeare at East 15 and Wolverhampton University, given seminars at NYU London and done Q+As with King's College London, University of Texas and many more. Beyond Shakespeare, Rob is also an action designer, and a teacher-in-training with the British Academy of Stage & Screen Combat. In addition to theatre, he has directed several short films, short documentaries, action for camera, and more. He is now exploring the role creative technologies can play in the future of live storytelling with The Stratford Festival, Theatre Royal Bath and others. You can find him at @rob.myles on Instagram, @robmyles on Twitter and Robert William Myles on Facebook. His website is robmyles.co.uk and his company The Show Must Go Online can be found on Twitter at @TSMGOnlineLive and on Instagram at @theshowmustgoonline. Additionally, here are links to some of the resources discussed in this episode; - https://www.jstor.org/stable/2708385 Views of Time in Shakespeare, Ricardo J. Quinones - https://youtu.be/IMu_tIli6Qg Ballet vs Theatre — Two different interpretations of Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (The Royal Ballet) Enjoy!

Hello listeners, and welcome to A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! Today I, host Annabelle Higgins, will be chatting with the lovely Danielle Farrow. In this episode, Danielle and I discuss a fierce French princess turned English queen, the beloved and mentally confused Danish prince and a Scottish thane of Glamis, Cawdor and eventual king. Danielle is an actor and occasional Shakespeare coach - generally acting comes first, but she does love to share her passion for his text. Past Shakespearean roles include Prospero, Oberon, Lysander, Viola, Juliet and – for something a little bit different – the Bawd in ‘Pericles’. Danielle is the creator of ‘inVocation: A Shakespearean Horror’ in which the performer calls on Shakespearean characters to possess them, thinking this is a brilliant approach to acting... But is it? Danielle’s long term project is ‘Shakespeare Monologue World’: do get in touch with her if you want to know more about this! Find her on Instagram at @ daniellefarrow_actress, Twitter at @DFarrow_Actress and Facebook at @DanielleFarrowActress. Her website is daniellefarrow.com. Enjoy!

Hello everyone, and welcome back to A Teenager’s Take on Shakespeare! Today’s amazing guest is Dominic Brewer. In this episode, we discuss the Danish prince we all know and love, a weak king whose reflections on solitude are still resonant today (one might call him the Hamlet of the histories) and a cunning, stunningly charming actor-playwright, as many call him, determined to orchestrate the protagonist’s downfall. Dominic is a UK based actor and singer, with over twenty years of credits in plays and musicals, at home and abroad. After studying English and Drama at St. Mary's University in Twickenham, he trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. His work in theatre includes West End, regional repertory, national and international tours across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, as well as concert appearances in venues including Wilton's Music Hall, the Hammersmith Apollo and the Royal Albert Hall. He was a member of the company of the Olivier and Tony award-winning productions of "Twelfth Night" and "Richard III" that transferred from Shakespeare's Globe to the West End and Broadway with Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry. Some notable roles include Sir Henry in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" for the Barn Theatre, Cirencester; the title role in "Dracula", Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Harold in "Harold and Maude" in European and world tours for TNT Theatre; Timon in Disney's "The Lion King"; Octavius Caesar in "Antony and Cleopatra" for Creation Theatre; Flute in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Nanki-Poo in "The Mikado" for the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough; Richard Rich in "A Man For All Seasons", Jem Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Justin West in "Dolly West's Kitchen" at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and Earl in "Whistle Down the Wind" in the West End. During coronatimes he was a proud contributor to the award winning "The Show Must Go Online" and "Shakespeare Republic" web series, and is currently performing in the UK and Canadian tour of the new musical "Fisherman's Friends”. Find him on Instagram at @_dombrewer and on Twitter at @dombrewer. Enjoy!