Podcasts about As You Like It

Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2025) engages with one of Shakespeare's greatest thought-experiments: How does one navigate the 'theatre of the world'? It invites students to examine how Shakespeare challenges this metaphor's vertical hierarchies in response to shifting understandings of cosmological order. Teachers will find rich contextual frameworks for exploring how Shakespeare envisions 'worlds' as emerging from dynamic variables, raising urgent questions about how identity and justice are environmentally constructed. Focal plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello. Each discussion features student centered 'Explorations'. These play-specific classroom activities can also be adapted across Shakespeare's corpus and tailored for both secondary and university-level students. These exercises encourage non-linear critical and creative thinking, inviting students to contemplate big ideas and generate new perspectives about the shared points of contact between Shakespeare's world and their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2025) engages with one of Shakespeare's greatest thought-experiments: How does one navigate the 'theatre of the world'? It invites students to examine how Shakespeare challenges this metaphor's vertical hierarchies in response to shifting understandings of cosmological order. Teachers will find rich contextual frameworks for exploring how Shakespeare envisions 'worlds' as emerging from dynamic variables, raising urgent questions about how identity and justice are environmentally constructed. Focal plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello. Each discussion features student centered 'Explorations'. These play-specific classroom activities can also be adapted across Shakespeare's corpus and tailored for both secondary and university-level students. These exercises encourage non-linear critical and creative thinking, inviting students to contemplate big ideas and generate new perspectives about the shared points of contact between Shakespeare's world and their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2025) engages with one of Shakespeare's greatest thought-experiments: How does one navigate the 'theatre of the world'? It invites students to examine how Shakespeare challenges this metaphor's vertical hierarchies in response to shifting understandings of cosmological order. Teachers will find rich contextual frameworks for exploring how Shakespeare envisions 'worlds' as emerging from dynamic variables, raising urgent questions about how identity and justice are environmentally constructed. Focal plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello. Each discussion features student centered 'Explorations'. These play-specific classroom activities can also be adapted across Shakespeare's corpus and tailored for both secondary and university-level students. These exercises encourage non-linear critical and creative thinking, inviting students to contemplate big ideas and generate new perspectives about the shared points of contact between Shakespeare's world and their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2025) engages with one of Shakespeare's greatest thought-experiments: How does one navigate the 'theatre of the world'? It invites students to examine how Shakespeare challenges this metaphor's vertical hierarchies in response to shifting understandings of cosmological order. Teachers will find rich contextual frameworks for exploring how Shakespeare envisions 'worlds' as emerging from dynamic variables, raising urgent questions about how identity and justice are environmentally constructed. Focal plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello. Each discussion features student centered 'Explorations'. These play-specific classroom activities can also be adapted across Shakespeare's corpus and tailored for both secondary and university-level students. These exercises encourage non-linear critical and creative thinking, inviting students to contemplate big ideas and generate new perspectives about the shared points of contact between Shakespeare's world and their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2025) engages with one of Shakespeare's greatest thought-experiments: How does one navigate the 'theatre of the world'? It invites students to examine how Shakespeare challenges this metaphor's vertical hierarchies in response to shifting understandings of cosmological order. Teachers will find rich contextual frameworks for exploring how Shakespeare envisions 'worlds' as emerging from dynamic variables, raising urgent questions about how identity and justice are environmentally constructed. Focal plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello. Each discussion features student centered 'Explorations'. These play-specific classroom activities can also be adapted across Shakespeare's corpus and tailored for both secondary and university-level students. These exercises encourage non-linear critical and creative thinking, inviting students to contemplate big ideas and generate new perspectives about the shared points of contact between Shakespeare's world and their own.

What a lot of fun I had talking to Zena Hitz about Gulliver's Travels. As well as discussing Swift, slavery, genocide, rationality, Christianity, and science, Zena told me that good philosophy is like a box of cake mix and that a liberal education requires you to be freed of false expertise. I also took Zena on a detour to discuss Iris Murdoch, the Catherine Project, and modern philosophy. TRANSCRIPTHENRY OLIVER: Today I am talking to Zena Hitz. Zena is a tutor at St. John's College. She is a philosopher, the author of Lost in Thought. She runs the Catherine Project. She's famous on Twitter. We don't know how she does it all. Zena, welcome.ZENA HITZ: Thank you, Henry. It's great to be here.OLIVER: And we're talking about Gulliver's Travels because it is 300 years since it was published, and it's a book that you love.HITZ: A book that I've loved for a long time.First Encounter with Gulliver's TravelsOLIVER: So tell me, when did you first read it?HITZ: Well, it was an important moment for me. I was in high school, and I was admitted to a scholarship summer program which offered college courses at different campuses. There were some normal-looking college courses at normal-looking colleges. And then there was this course at St. John's called Science as Literature, Literature as Science. [laughs] It had this description that was just unbelievable. And I thought to myself, “This is the one, obviously the one to go to.”So I went, and we read books that no one in their right mind would assign to high school students now, and maybe not then. The fragments of Parmenides, Plato's Timaeus, selections from Aristotle's Physics, Gulliver's Travels. After reading a number of—preface to Ptolemy's Almagest, geocentric astronomy. And we read Gulliver's Travels after reading selections from Hooke's Micrographia, so the inventor of the microscope, and Galileo's Starry Messenger, which is one of the great first uses of the telescope to discover the nature of the moon and the satellites of Jupiter.So then we read Gulliver's Travels. We also read Emma and Flannery O'Connor and various other things. And one of the faculty who was running it said at one point, “Well, we thought we'd throw a bunch of things together and see what you could do, what you could make of it. We didn't actually have an idea of how these all fit together,” which I think was probably true.At any rate, I think I came to Gulliver's Travels thinking about these scientists who were looking at very large things and very small things, and thinking in general about the follies of human perception, whether that was shown in literature or philosophy or what have you, the ways in which human perception and knowledge don't work very well. And I think Swift is still one of the best people to—Gulliver's Travels is still one of the best books about that because it's in the mode of a travel diary, an eyewitness account.Gulliver is trained as a surgeon, by his own account. He at one point says he was a bit of a projector in his younger days, someone who undertook scientific projects. And he's a terrible observer, the worst imaginable observer, and Swift so brilliantly lets us see through his eyes, lets us see all the things he doesn't see. And I think it's not just about seeing and knowing. It has a very profound, I think, moral and political set of commitments. So it's a very humane book. It's social criticism, but from a point of view of a very deep humanity. So I've always loved the book for these reasons since then.I came back to it more recently because it is part of the curriculum at St. John's. So when I came back to teach there, I began to reread it. The other experience I had was that I wrote a long essay on it when I was an undergraduate. So those are my—I'm not any kind of expert. My knowledge of the historical context of the book is limited. It's not zero, but it's limited. But I have always loved it as an account of human understanding and its failures and the way that might impact how we live and how happy we can be.The Houyhnhnm ProblemOLIVER: Have you changed how you think about it as you've taught it?HITZ: I have not really changed the way I think about it. It gets more—like all of these books, the more you read them, the more comes out of them, the more details come up. Hilarious. The more jokes you get, the more . . .I think the one more recent insight I had was, I hadn't understood the full horror of the Houyhnhnms in the last book until relatively recently. I think that took me some time to really take on. It's one of the cases where Gulliver's misperceptions are a bit harder to see, and I think many readers just assume that Swift is endorsing the praise of the Houyhnhnms in some sense or other.OLIVER: There are some very serious critics in the past who have called them Swift's ideal beings. Which at this point in history seems unthinkable, but it has been a belief among serious readers.HITZ: Yes, yes. And also common among students. Yes, it's absolutely one of the wrongest opinions you could have about anything, I think.OLIVER: Why does Swift allow us to make that mistake? Are we bad readers out of the context, or has he made too good a job of his diversions and concealments and ironies?HITZ: That's a great question, and I'll just take a stab at it. I think that he has hit on a mode of misperception which is very deep to us, and it's something that we're much more guilty of. We could imagine that if we were in a place where everyone was small or everyone was large, we might make mistakes like Gulliver makes. But we all live, I think, in communities that are a bit like the Houyhnhnms. And so we are all very subject to these kinds of deceptions, and I think that's how he gets us.That's not to really excuse the bad readings because, you know, Gulliver does leave the land of the Houyhnhnms with a boat made out of human skin, which should—I think that moment should make you realize, if you haven't yet, that something is very seriously wrong with Gulliver. Gulliver has been kind of destroyed as a person by his travels, and especially by this last trip. But if you pass over that little detail, maybe you think, “Oh, wow, he found some very simple beings.”OLIVER: Well, there's also the great council where they debate the genocide of the Yahoos.HITZ: [laughs] Yes.OLIVER: And it directly contradicts several things Gulliver has come to believe about the Houyhnhnms, about the Yahoos, and about himself. And he's completely unaware of these contradictions and so in awe of the Houyhnhnms that he doesn't quite understand, I think, that he's accounting a genocide.HITZ: That's right. That's right.OLIVER: Even though he uses a phrase from Genesis that's very unmistakable. It's a sort of remarkable moment of—particularly to us, having had the 20th century. I think that's why Swift came back into favor in a way, because people used to say, Swift's unbearable view of human nature . . .This is a great bit in Boswell's Life of Johnson where, when they're traveling through Scotland, they're with a lady, and she says to Johnson, “Is any man naturally good?” And Johnson says, “No, no more than a wolf.” And Boswell says, “Well, sir, what about ladies?” And Johnson says, “God, no, absolutely not.” And this woman says, “Oh my God, this is worse than Swift,” utterly horrific view of human nature.But of course, we can actually say, did he go far enough? [laughter] I mean, Swift clearly understands something very real and deep. The council of genocide is horrifyingly familiar to us. And I think that's much to Swift's credit that he can see that, and to show that Gulliver would blind himself to it. And people still blind themselves to it, right?HITZ: That's right. And I wonder—you would know more about this than me because it is a bit of a historical question, but my understanding is that quite a lot of the savagery, the worst parts of rule over men that we see in Gulliver's Travels are pictures of Ireland in the 17th, 18th centuries. And I wonder if that took some time to reveal itself to the British, and in some ways it's still not really as known as it might be. We think of the colonial project as being something that was directed at India and Africa—OLIVER: Faraway countries.HITZ: —faraway countries where people looked really different. And we're not as familiar with the kinds of things that were done to the cuddly Irish with their nice music, and who we don't think of as being people that you would savagely oppress like that. So I think—OLIVER: So, I think partly the English are not interested in their own history in the way that they are expected to be. And partly the English interest in Irish history has become very focused on the more recent events. And it's very hard to get back past that. And it all becomes very complicated, and it's a sort of different country. So there's some of that, but I think generally we don't want to know what we did, yes.HITZ: Well, and I think in anglophone countries in general, there's going to be a history of something like that. To attribute it to the British is not to say that—I mean, Americans have chattel slavery and the genocide of the natives, and the Australians have their own situation. All of the anglophone countries have something like this on their conscience.I think that obscures the meaning of that final book. I think we don't recognize—and that's really to Swift's credit, to have a social critique that is so real and so deep that you may not even recognize yourself in the picture.Slavery in Gulliver's TravelsOLIVER: Yes. When I read it again—I read it as an undergraduate, but I really was actually more interested in the other parts of Swift's work. And I thought it was brilliant, and then I read it again. And it was more recently that—I didn't understand how I couldn't have seen it, but it's basically a book about slavery, as I come back to it.And in each of the books there is enslavement of a different sort. So, to begin with, Gulliver is the one being kept in a box or kept in a house, or he's chained up by the Lilliputians or Glumdalclitch.HITZ: Right. That's right.OLIVER: She's a very nice sort of master, as it were, [laughter] but he has that box that can be sealed, and the dwarf has him swiping at the wasps. And then the enslavement that the flying island has of the country below is like England and Ireland. And then in the final book, you know, the Houyhnhnms are whipping the Yahoos.HITZ: That's right.OLIVER: The slavery thing gets worse and worse as the book goes on. And one of the things that's clever is that it's funny when Gulliver is enslaved, right? When the wasps are let out and he has to—and Swift sort of does that clever thing where he undermines things by making it a joke at the end. By the book of the Houyhnhnms, there is really very little humor. And the twist at the end is always dark.Gulliver can't see that—he can see that he's a bit like the Yahoos. But he can't see that they've been enslaved in the way that he—the farmer wanted to take him around the kingdom and show him off, and he says, “I couldn't possibly have had children in that condition because I couldn't have it on my conscience that I had begotten a slave, someone born into slavery. I couldn't do that.”HITZ: Right.OLIVER: Then he's in the Houyhnhnms and he can't—it's quite remarkable.HITZ: [laughs] Yes. I don't think it's quite true that in the end there's no humor. I read it with some Catherine Project group a couple of years ago, and one of the readers pointed out that it's not obvious Gulliver isn't leaving his home and sitting out in the ocean and always landing on England every single time; just every time, he lands there.And there's something hilarious about an Englishman that discovers a place where there's all horses, [laughter] and his love of horses overwhelms him, and he becomes persuaded that they're the only rational beings that there are. I mean, that is funny.OLIVER: Yes, I agree. There's a lot of irony and stuff. But I think it's in Lilliput when he describes their manner of writing. And he says they don't write from left to right as we do in England, or from right to left, or up-down like the Chinese, but from one corner to the other, as the ladies do in England. This is very funny, dry humor, and that sort of thing is gone. And the things that surprise you at the end of a sentence or a paragraph are more like, “Oh, and of course I used Yahoo skin to cover the boat.” And you're like, oh my God, this is not a joke anymore.You know, in A Modest Proposal, he makes real humor out of those kind of horrors. And with the Houyhnhnms, I think he actually refuses the joke to make you feel the disgust, in a way.HITZ: Yes, that might be right. That might be right.Swift and PhilosophyOLIVER: What do you think about the idea that the Houyhnhnms are drawn from the Phaedrus and Socrates's idea of the soul with the two horses? And there's the good, rational horse and the vulgar, passionate horse, and the Yahoos are the other horse. You see what I mean?HITZ: Yes, yes.OLIVER: Is Swift showing us the two sides, and Gulliver's mistake is to prefer the one and not the—HITZ: Right, I think I have heard something like this before. I'm a bit skeptical. Swift doesn't strike me as someone who uses philosophy in quite that way. I think he's much more interested in Gulliver's—the Houyhnhnms' self-deception about the kinds of beings they are. They do not say “the thing which is not,” yet Gulliver's master hides from him this conversation about the genocide for quite some time. And maybe we don't know if he tells him quite the whole truth about it. So there's—OLIVER: And he also conceals the fact that the others don't like Gulliver because he's a partial—a reasonable Yahoo, as it were.HITZ: Right. So their self-deception, Gulliver's being taken in by their self-deception, the ways in which they—this is one of the ways that I think it's profound about the nature of slavery. And to cheer us all up, I'll make a Holocaust analogy, as you also did.When I was traveling in Germany some years ago, in one of their Holocaust museums, there was an image from a Nazi-era German newspaper of Jewish people living in complete squalor in the ghetto. And of course, they had forced them into squalor. But somehow they forced them into squalor, and then this reinforces the sense that they're these rat-like beings.And there's something very similar that the Houyhnhnms do to the Yahoos. They force them into this animal state, and then they say, “Oh God, look, these people are disgusting. They just don't know how to act.” That seems to me the kind of level at which Swift is working. He is interested in the nature of a human being, but not in the abstract Platonic sense, I don't think.He strikes me as someone who believes in common sense, common decency, basic freedom, and basic use of reason. And he finds in his time that there's distorting teachings, distorting ways of behavior that have gotten people far off track. To me, that's what it feels like it comes from. It doesn't feel like Plato is in the background to me.OLIVER: Is there an extent to which, though, it's a work of sort of anti-philosophy? As you say, Swift, he likes common sense. He likes ordinary reason, and he likes what he would call the revealed truth of Christianity. So he talks, in his sermons about people, it comes to you from God like a light. It's revealed to you. And he doesn't like this idea that the philosophers can work it all out.And in a way, that's the same sort of mistake that the scientists think they can discover all this stuff, and they go in these crazy ways. And the Houyhnhnms are a bit like that. If you had philosopher-kings, they would end up being perverted examples of rationality because they're ignoring the—so do you think it's anti-philosophy in a way? The book is saying, “No, no, I don't want philosophers”?Criticizing Elite Intellectual CultureHITZ: That's definitely a plausible reading. But it's hard to tell whether it's anti-philosophy or anti a particular style of thinking. It's worth pointing out, in that light, that Gulliver, when he arrives in the land of the Houyhnhnms, before he even meets a horse, he sees a Yahoo who, from what I can tell from the text, is trying to wave at him and say hello, who recognizes him. And he's horrified. He sees him instantly as a monster.So I think immediately upon landing, he sees the Yahoos as monstrous, and that tells me that he must already be off kilter. So he's not just corrupted by the Houyhnhnms; he's been somehow led off track, away from the capacity to recognize fellow human beings before that.And he's come from this—the third book is all about various kinds of inquiry, scientific endeavors, practical endeavors, talking to the greats of the past, necromancy, and various kinds of inquiry into wisdom or things like wisdom. And somehow that's the thing that seems to push him to the point where he can no longer tell what a human being is.OLIVER: One of my favorite parts is when he's with the wizards, and he asks to be shown Homer and Aristotle and all their commentators. And he says that there were vast rooms full of these commentators, endless numbers of them. But Homer and Aristotle didn't recognize any of them because they were all so ashamed of the terrible things they'd said about these great men's works that they kept themselves forever in a different part of the underworld. They couldn't bear the shame of being revealed to having told lies and said second-rate things.It's very, very funny. And I think that's another sort of angle on which the book says, “You're so tempted to make a comment and have an idea and be a philosopher, and you should just accept the revealed truth of what is known. Just stop it. Just stop it.” [laughter]HITZ: Well, I suppose maybe I would also put it this way, that Swift sees the condition of 18th-century Ireland, which is quite poor, very bad. And it's ruled in a savage way by the English, who have a quite flourishing intellectual culture, as it happens, at this time.So I think what he might be is not a critic of philosophy so much as a critic of intellectual culture. Because intellectual culture seems to not only not help with existential concerns like slavery and oppression and savage poverty, but even serves to mask and hide and create illusions behind it.So that's, I guess, how it strikes me, as a book that's hostile to what you'd now call elite intellectual culture. And I don't know how fundamental that critique is, in light of its inability to solve problems for real human beings or to obscure the causes of what's going on with real human beings.OLIVER: I think it's quite fundamental because outside of Gulliver's—I think this comes into Gulliver's Travels, but what he might have said more explicitly elsewhere is, there are people starving in the streets of Dublin. And we've got corrupt politicians and intellectuals saying all these things, but you know, here she is starving. You don't need to work that out. [laughter] There's no question—the reveal—just be a Christian and, like, for goodness' sake . . .HITZ: Yes.OLIVER: And when, for example, he talks to the king of Brobdingnag, and there's that wonderful satire of the English government and everything. And he says, “Those people understood mathematics and poetry and whatever, but I could never drive into their head any sense of the abstract or any of these speculative—they simply didn't know what that was. They didn't know what I was saying.” [laughter]And so in a way, his ideal government is anti-philosophical because it would just look at the human problem in front of it. It wouldn't do speculative science. It wouldn't think of itself as rational, all this Platonic stuff. It would just—she's in rags, she has bare feet, you know?HITZ: Yes, that's right.OLIVER: What do we need a philosopher-king? Like, what are you talking about?HITZ: Exactly.OLIVER: The priest understands this because he's there in the city doing it. And is there something of that in the book, that constant resistance of the cleverness of people who cannot see daily life?HITZ: I think that's absolutely true, and I think it's probably one of the things I love about the book, because I think this somehow gets to something in my own heart. Even though I'm a professional intellectual—I have been my whole life—the distance between the concerns of professional intellectuals and the concerns of living, real people in various parts of the world is very large.And it's even worse when, as it was when I was coming up in grad school, there's a ton of explicit concern and various operations underway to improve life for others, which have zero connection with anything that anyone actually does. So I think the Laputans, which is the beginning of the third book, when Gulliver—OLIVER: The flying island.HITZ: Yes, when Gulliver visits the people on the flying island, who have one eye towards the heavens and one eye pointed inward. And they study music and mathematics, and they live in a giant flying saucer, which has the—OLIVER: And the flappers.HITZ: That's right. [laughter] When someone needs to talk to them, someone flaps their ears so that they pay attention. And their wives all run off with working people because they can't bear to be treated the way they are by men like this. And the flying saucer is not just distant. It also has the power to crush the towns underneath it if it judges them to be rebellious.This image will stick with you for the rest of your life. I mean, it's absolutely perfect, and the perfect image of bad government of a kind when intellectual culture is prized. And it's hinted early on in the book in Lilliput, when the rulers in Lilliput have to do these elaborate dances with ropes.OLIVER: Oh, with the king and the chief minister hold the pole, funny angles, and if you get under it, you get a green ribbon or a red ribbon.HITZ: Exactly. [laughter] And they have these athletic contests of grace and various colored ribbons, and that determine how far you get in the halls of power.OLIVER: Yes. Are you a cabinet minister or a junior minister? Yes, yes.HITZ: Exactly. So there, it's all just a funny joke. But it develops, I think, into the Laputans, people who have kinds of expertise that are actually hostile to them doing any kind of humane governing. So yes, that seems right to me.Christianity in GulliverOLIVER: To what extent is it a Christian book?HITZ: That's an interesting question. I've never found a strong Christian element in it myself. There are satires of religious wars, both in Lilliput, where Lilliput's at war with its neighboring city. Oh, wait a second, there's two different disputes in Lilliput. One is about what side you cut your egg on.OLIVER: There are the Little-Endians and the Big-Endians,HITZ: Right. And then there's also one about heel size. So there's two different kinds of disputes.OLIVER: With the marvelous image that the king is a Short-Heeler. But they think that the heir to the throne might be favorable to the High-Heelers because he has one heel slightly higher than the other, and he walks with a wobbly gait.HITZ: [laughs] That's right. This, again, in Lilliput is just utterly hilarious, outrageous, very silly, obviously a parody of religious wars between different kinds of Christians. But it resurfaces towards the end. It's the Houyhnhnms, where he talks to the Master Horse—OLIVER: And the horse sort of pretends to this great rationality, simply can't understand that men would kill each other over the question of whether flesh is bread or bread is flesh.HITZ: That's right. That's right. That's right. So there's definitely disparaging remarks about religious wars. And as you're talking about it, where along with Swift's praise of common sense, there's a kind of basic Christian morality, which is that the poor and the suffering need attention. That all strikes me as Christian. Apart from that, I'm not sure. If you have a religious take, I'd be interested to hear it.OLIVER: I find it very interesting that Swift had quite strict beliefs. He was not in favor of Catholics. He thought Dissenters should be tolerated, but he wanted the Test Act. He was very particular about all these things. And in his other works, he's quite direct about that. But in this book, he achieves a kind of high ambivalence. And he's not a Little-Ender or a Big-Ender.HITZ: That's right.OLIVER: And he says the religious text on which this is based simply says that you must break the egg at the most convenient end.HITZ: [laughs] That's right.OLIVER: Now, of course, in reality, he's a Little-Ender, and he's very committed to the Reformation, and he thinks it's all terrible that they're not. And it's interesting that someone with such angry, insistent beliefs on the Anglican Church would take this ambivalent position.And he satirizes so much. But the anti-slavery stuff, the description of the Laputans bringing the island down, and then he says, “I've never seen so much want and misery, and there's a wild look in their eyes, and they're wearing rags.” I mean, this is Dublin, right? This is just, along with the slavery, this basic Christian concern for the oppressed, the poor, the suffering.HITZ: Yes, that's right.OLIVER: And so I don't quite know. It's almost like the book is saying, again with this anti-intellectual thing, all these doctrinal disputes and which church this and who believes that. And here we have slaves and poor people and beggars and starving people.HITZ: Right.OLIVER: Christianity should deal with that first. So is the implicit criticism of his fellow Christians, in a way, that they're more interested in these disputes than in the fact that there are enslaved people and suffering people and—you see what I mean?HITZ: Yes, that's right.OLIVER: And Gulliver—the Houyhnhnms are highly rational but not Christian, which is a significant omission. And by the end, are you supposed to wonder if Gulliver actually isn't very much of a Christian? Because he can see this suffering and not respond to it at all.HITZ: Right, when maybe the—is the best person in the book the King of Brobdingnag? Does that seem right? The person with the—at least who says the best things?OLIVER: He says the best things. I think the best person is Glumdalclitch. She shows real charity and real love towards him.HITZ: What about the Houyhnhnm, the one who likes him, who says, “Fare thee well, gentle Yahoo”? It's tear-jerking—OLIVER: Oh, the sorrel nag.HITZ: The sorrel nag. I can literally weep at that moment when she says, “Fare thee well, gentle Yahoo.”OLIVER: That's true. That's true. She and Glumdalclitch are maybe more similar characters. Yes, yes, yes.HITZ: They're similar characters. Okay.OLIVER: And they have that basic, you don't need to call it Christian. You don't need—it doesn't need theology.HITZ: Humane. I would call it humane. Yes.OLIVER: They have that basic love of their fellow. You know, Glumdalclitch doesn't say, “Oh, how amusing this little man is, or how entertaining, or I can make—” She says, “He must be cared for. He looks a bit like me. He must be cared for.”HITZ: Right.OLIVER: And the sorrel nag, again, has the love of the fellow creature.HITZ: That's right. That's right.OLIVER: So I think Swift might be bringing in this, what he thinks of as the revealed truth of Christianity. Like, you shouldn't need telling, you shouldn't need to argue. It's there.HITZ: Right. This is just me making things up, which is what I'm here for. We're podcasting. Yes.OLIVER: Yes, of course. Also, is that not what the philosophers would do? That's what Swift would say.HITZ: But if I was going to make something up, what I would say is something like this: that Swift to me, from the testimony of Gulliver's Travels, which is the book of his I really know the best. I don't know much about the rest of it. He has a level of self-awareness and sophistication. So, he knows that that religious difference is being used as a pretext. He knows that it is obscuring the suffering of these people. So, for the purposes of the book, he says, “Look, if you're a smart person, if you're a smart ruler, if you're an actually humane, intelligent, commonsensical ruler, you know that the fact that they have the wrong religious views is not a reason for them to be enslaved and oppressed and starved.” So that would be my suspicion.And that's why I think, to me, the religion is so light, because it's not really a religious problem. It's actually just a human problem and a political problem that is, how do you run your country so that these subject peoples are allowed to be free and develop themselves and be full human beings? That would be my made-up guess.Students' Views of GulliverOLIVER: What do undergraduates think? What is it that they find interesting in the book, and what do they like or dislike?HITZ: It's been a couple of years. I think they like this idea that—we all think travel is very broadening, a great way to think about the world. You know, you can learn so much about one's fellow human beings. And whatever else is going on in Gulliver's Travels, travel does not necessarily produce enlightenment.So I think they like the attention to the ways in which, even when we are trying to learn, we fail to learn. And the ways in which structures of learning, like traveling or studying science, might actually make you worse and not better, things like that. But it's not a book—I think it's fair to say it's not one of the favorite books of the undergraduates.OLIVER: Okay.HITZ: I think they find it a little bit distant, and I'm not sure why that is.OLIVER: Is it because it sort of looks like a novel, but it's not what we have come to expect a novel to be? And it sort of has that—HITZ: I think that's right.OLIVER: The pre–Jane Austen novel is kind of weird to us now.HITZ: Well, they love Don Quixote.OLIVER: Okay.HITZ: And that is a challenge of a similar kind. It's a novel which doesn't quite read like a novel, and the humor is kind of old. I mean, it's also true—undergraduates, in my experience, in general—I hope they'll forgive me for saying this on a podcast—they're not always good at comedy. They tend to think that serious things must be tragic.OLIVER: You can't get an A by making a joke.HITZ: Well, more that they have a sense that an intellectual life is something serious. It's serious.OLIVER: Oh, yes. Okay. And the syllabus slightly reinforces that, doesn't it?HITZ: Well, it's sort of self-reinforcing because we used to read more Aristophanes. We used to read Rabelais.OLIVER: If you do Shakespeare, it'll be the tragedies.HITZ: No, no, we do Shakespeare comedies.OLIVER: Oh, you do? Okay.HITZ: Yes. We have As You Like It and The Tempest. And do we have more tragedies? Maybe one more tragedy than comedy, but not a terrible imbalance.OLIVER: Well, that's good.HITZ: It's not Shakespeare-type comedy that's—maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, a Shakespeare comedy is something that ends in a marriage, more or less.OLIVER: More or less.HITZ: It's things that are funny—they don't necessarily think that humor is a way of thinking.OLIVER: Do they struggle with irony?HITZ: No, not usually. As long as it's serious irony, Anyway, I'm not sure why. I think I'm making things—I'm going too far out of the grounds for drawing conclusions.Favorite Parts of the BookOLIVER: Sure. Do you have a favorite passage?HITZ: One of my favorites is the part—is it Balnibarbi where they have people who try to speak with objects?OLIVER: Oh, yes, yes, yes.HITZ: And they have to carry around wagons full of things because they never know what you might want to talk about. [laughter] That's so weird. Because I think I spent a lot of time studying with philosophers, there's a bit of—something's on the nose about this.OLIVER: Yes.HITZ: You know, it's like, “No, you've got to say exactly—no, that's too imprecise. You have to say exactly what you mean.” Bernard Williams, the great philosopher, has something complaining about how contemporary philosophers are very controlling of their readers. They don't want anyone to make the slightest mistake about what they mean by a particular word. That's how the people who speak by objects strike me.OLIVER: Do you think that is a problem of contemporary philosophy?HITZ: Oh, sure. Yes, absolutely. Yes. The way Williams puts it is that when you write something, it should be like a cake mix, and the reader should be able to put their own egg and bake the cake themselves.OLIVER: Oh, I see. You mean like a box of mix, yes.HITZ: Yes, yes, exactly. It's like a box of cake mix. Whereas making the cake painstakingly and force-feeding it bite by bite to the reader is not actually an—OLIVER: Telling them how it tastes.HITZ: Telling them how it tastes is not an educational endeavor.OLIVER: When does this become too dominant in philosophy?HITZ: It's a feature of 20th-century analytic philosophy to be very careful with the meanings of words. And it's by no means universal; it's just a natural vice to the territory.Iris MurdochOLIVER: Is this a problem for someone like Iris Murdoch, or is it more the A. J. Ayer type?HITZ: No, it's the A. J. Ayer type, not Iris Murdoch. No, Iris Murdoch is heterodox outside of the—OLIVER: Do you like her philosophy?HITZ: I do, yes.OLIVER: What do you like about it? Platonic?HITZ: Now, see, I came here to talk about Swift. [laughter]OLIVER: I know, but you made such a good point about the satire of philosophers.HITZ: I like her writing for a more general educated audience, her not making assumptions about the philosophical training of her readers, and her use of Plato for sure, which is quite interesting and creative. She sort of ingests Plato and does something with it that I think is very interesting.OLIVER: Is she properly appreciated as a Platonist, or do you think there's more attention to be paid?HITZ: There's probably more attention to be paid, but she gets some attention. She gets some attention. I also don't think it was particularly helpful, these two books that came out a couple of years ago about Murdoch, Foot, Midgley, and Anscombe.OLIVER: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I only read one of those. It was quite good.HITZ: It might be quite good, but those four women are quite different from one another. So it's an example of where attention to identity could obscure as much as it—OLIVER: Well, one of the books was more about the ideas—they were both obviously about the ideas—and one of them was more about the fact that they were together in Oxford. And that they benefited from hanging out, talking, doing different sorts of work, sleeping with each other's husbands, et cetera.HITZ: Yes, all the good stuff.OLIVER: And from the more sociological point of view, it was very interesting to see that, actually, a lot of what Murdoch did was bound up with her friendships and relationships, in that the argument basically is, A. J. Ayer and the others get sent away because of the war. So these four women are actually—they've been banned from this seminar and told they're not allowed.Well, now they can sit around and do what they want to do. And it worked, and they all produced very interesting things. So from that point of view, I think it was—but I agree with you, Elizabeth Anscombe and Iris Murdoch are not the same. [laughter]HITZ: Not even particularly similar. I also feel like I've read enough of Murdoch's novels to have a sense of what the sociological situation was like.OLIVER: You like the novels?HITZ: I do like them, yes.OLIVER: Do you have favorites?HITZ: I can't remember the name of my favorite because I haven't read them for years. It's one of the things I read years ago, the one—I'd remember it if I saw the title. There's an LSD trip at the beginning of it.OLIVER: Oh, The Good Apprentice. I love that book.HITZ: The Good Apprentice, yes. I think that was my favorite. But I never fell in love with it. I just liked it, and I found it interesting, and I found the sociology interesting. Okay, this is what academics at this time period were doing.What to Pair with SwiftOLIVER: We got diverted.HITZ: “We” got diverted. [laughs]OLIVER: We did. If Swift is on a great books syllabus, what is it good to pair him with? If people are reading Swift, on or off a syllabus, do you think there are other—Hooker, you said, which I think would be interesting.HITZ: No, Hooke. It's Hooke.OLIVER: Hooke. Hooke. That's a very good point.HITZ: The guy who wrote Micrographia, who has the enormous picture of the flea.OLIVER: Yes, yes, yes. So that would be good. But any other? Is it worth reading Plato alongside him?HITZ: Well, I like to—he's on the list for something we called Life of the Mind Seminar at Catherine Project, which is our introduction to the life of the mind.OLIVER: And just to tell people, the Catherine Project—this is not a university. Anyone can join a seminar.HITZ: That's right. It's an open online readers community. Consists of small, high-quality conversations, mostly on Zoom, some in person.OLIVER: You could be some kid, an accountant, a dentist, whatever, and you come and do a—you've got a PhD running a seminar, and you get that experience.HITZ: Right. Some of them are peer led, so they're not necessarily PhDs running them. The reading groups are not necessarily run by PhDs. But the core program in which the Life of the Mind Seminar is—either a PhD or an ABD [all but degree] or someone with some academic experience is usually leading that. We have it there, and we have it there with a set of books that are meant to disorient rather than to orient.So one of the difficulties with reading great books with more or less random selections of adults is that people feel uncertain, out of place. And they bring expertise, real or fake, to the table, which makes it very difficult to have a conversation. It's usually fake expertise, for what it's worth.OLIVER: Give us an example of what you mean by fake expertise.HITZ: Well, so someone will have—we'll be, say, reading Hamlet. Someone will have taken a class on Shakespeare in college, and they'll say, “Actually, we're asking this question. But what I learned, my professor told me, is that Hamlet actually symbolizes—he has an Oedipus complex and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then this is what this means, and this is what that means.” And then your conversation's over, because you need to focus just on the text that's shared between the—OLIVER: It's not a crossword puzzle.HITZ: Exactly. It's not a crossword puzzle, and it's not something where—or the other—people often, again, they feel a bit on their back feet. So they'll google a bunch of stuff about the author, and they'll start tossing out random facts about the book or about the author, about the context. And again, you don't get really into the meat of the book that way.So, Gulliver's Travels is there to help us think about ways in which we might not be expert in things we're expert. Ways in which we might think we understand something and not understand it. And ways in which people who, with every appearance of seriousness and scientific principle, can just say unbelievably stupid things.So it's a very, very good book for that, where in that sense, it's I think very good for any liberal education program. It's liberating that way. One of the things we need to be liberated from is false expertise.OLIVER: You're talking really about these secondhand opinions that you haven't interrogated and come to understand yourself.HITZ: Exactly. Exactly, exactly, exactly.OLIVER: This is what Mill says. Everything is new to someone, and the real genius is that you find it out.HITZ: Exactly.OLIVER: You don't get taught it. Yes, yes.HITZ: Exactly, exactly. So real learning is things you find for yourself. Anyway, that's what I like it with. As for pairing it, yes, I think it would just depend on what you were—I don't have a clear thought about that. I think it'd be good to pair it with Galileo's Starry Messenger and preface to Hooke's Micrographia.But you could also pair it with Emma. Be quite good, actually, because Emma is also about someone who really doesn't know what they're doing and has no idea. Thinks they know what's going on; they really have no idea what's going on.OLIVER: Yes. Hamlet as well, in fact.HITZ: I guess so. Does he not know what's going on?OLIVER: Who's diverting now? [laughter] Well, there's an interesting question, isn't there, about whether Hamlet has legitimate doubts. So he says, “This ghost could be a demon. I should be careful. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to pretend to be mad. I'm going to find out.” Or whether he just doesn't want to see the truth in front of him, and he quote-unquote “delays” because of that. I don't know if you have a view.HITZ: I don't think he's deluded. I think the problem is something different, but I haven't thought enough about it recently to know what his volitional obstacle is. But I don't think he's deluded. I think he sees what's going on, but there's something about acting that doesn't work for him.OLIVER: An internal—HITZ: Something internal. Something internal. In a way, I find the play very hard. I don't know what, for instance, what does that obstacle have to do with Ophelia? What's going on with that? Anyway, he's very mysterious, but I don't—yes, that'd be my sense, is that he's not—OLIVER: Do you buy this idea that he's a nihilist?HITZ: No, although he's definitely faced with something like nihilism. He has to look at it. And of course, the play does end with everyone dead, [laughs] so it's not obvious that he's wrong.Sympathy for GulliverOLIVER: This question hangs over Gulliver as well. Is the problem by the end that he's basically become a nihilist? His response to the Yahoos is to deny meaning, deny the possibility of meaning, to shut himself away.HITZ: He is a true misanthrope. He hates human beings and refuses to interact with them and in that sense, in some way, removes himself from any further mistakes. In another way, the mistake that he's in is so massive that that hardly seems like a consolation. But yes, he's definitely stuck, and he's stuck in a place where who he is—because he's a human being. We have to remember that.So he's in a place of total self-hatred and the hatred of his neighbor, what you'd call from the Christian perspective a total loss of charity. Is that nihilist? I don't know, but it's definitely bad. It's not a good state to be in. Maybe I don't know what you mean by nihilism exactly.OLIVER: Are we supposed to disapprove of him at the end or sympathize with him?HITZ: Disapprove, I think.OLIVER: Yes? You don't feel sorry for him?HITZ: I do a bit.OLIVER: But not much.HITZ: Well, should I?OLIVER: I have come to believe—yes, this is what I've come to feel in subsequent readings, is that Gulliver, as you say, is very mistaken. He thinks he understands things that he does not understand. He has the sort of pretense of rationality, but he lacks any sort of meta rationality to see what his limits are.And he becomes, therefore—he doesn't advocate genocide, and he doesn't take any pleasure in using Yahoo skin, but he's just completely null to it. There's a sort of void there where human feeling ought to be. And it's tragic for him. It's a tragic ending that he is so isolated. And we can't sympathize with him, as it were, but we can feel sort of awful that he's shriveled into this state rather than judging or blame.I think one of the persistent themes of the book is, as I say, this kind of basic love of fellow creature, the Glumdalclitch or the sorrel. And if you take that from the book, you will wish you could bring Gulliver back.HITZ: Right. What you're saying reminds me that there is an interesting parallel in Plato's dialogues that I hadn't thought of before, Plato's Parmenides, which is perhaps the most difficult Plato's dialogue. So it's a conversation between young Socrates and the philosopher Parmenides. The first third of it is relatively clear, some arguments against what people think of as Plato's theory of forms.Then there's an extensive, insane dialectical process where various theses about the connection between being and oneness are both argued for and then refuted, and argued for and then refuted, pages and pages and pages and pages of it. So this seems to be—it's Parmenides and Zeno who are running Socrates through this ringer.And the person at the very beginning of the dialogue who they have to go find, to tell him the story of how Socrates met Parmenides, used to study philosophy. But now he just trains horses. [laughs] One of my teachers pointed this out to me, and I've never been able to get over it, that he spent this time doing philosophy, and he's like, “You know what? I'm going to work with horses for the rest of my life. If I never hear another human voice, that's fine with me.”So I think that is an interesting parallel. And I think it is not really that uncommon to see people who are totally disillusioned with relating to humans, who then relate to animals instead, like they devote themselves to animals.OLIVER: But on that reading, it might be a disillusionment with philosophical humanity. It might be philosophy that's killed Gulliver's human feeling.HITZ: That's right. Well, I think that's one possibility, one very strong possibility. That's why I think the Houyhnhnms come after the Laputans. Going to the furthest reaches of his intellectual interests just destroys his humanity.But it doesn't seem like exhaustion in the same way that whoever, I can't remember his name, the character who relates the Parmenides, where you just think he must be exhausted from having heard more than one conversation like this. [laughter] And just in the stable with the horses eating oats, I mean, it's just delightful. It's just so peaceful, you know?OLIVER: Bucolic, pastoral, yes.HITZ: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Maybe you're right that we should be more sympathetic to someone in that situation.OLIVER: Well, next time you read it, you can tell me if you change your mind.HITZ: All right. I will tell you if I change my mind.OLIVER: Very good. Zena Hitz, thank you very much.HITZ: Thank you very much, Henry Oliver. This is a public episode. 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Adam's youngest son, John, locked himself in the bathroom. No big deal — kid's fine, sang songs in there for forty-five minutes like a champ. The problem was the doorknob. Broken cam, broken spring, faceplate screws on the wrong side, and no way in. So Adam did what any father of six at the end of a long day does: he took an angle grinder to the thing and ground the entire doorknob into a pile of metal shards on the floor. Dave's suggestion — order the door open under holy obedience — came in a little too late.Then Dave told on himself. Reseating a toilet, scraping the wax ring, already in a state of borderline rage. He bumped the tank against the tile and cracked it. In a fit of Herculean fury he hoisted the seat over his head, ready to Hulk-smash it into a million pieces — and heard, somewhere, his guardian angel. Jesus doesn't want you to do this. He set it down. Didn't destroy it. And got rewarded for it: American Standard honored a lifetime warranty he didn't know he had and shipped him a $1,600 toilet, free, to replace the $200 one he broke. Resisting the rage paid out at eight to one.Then a quieter note. Baby Mary is still in the NICU. They got her off the breathing tube — she lasted about 24 hours before she had to be re-intubated. Good progress, long road still ahead. Oklahoma City's two hours off, the kids are out of school, and the Minihans are looking at hiring a nanny. But Adam wanted to brag on Lady Haylee. A stranger at the NICU left her a handwritten note and a crochet sweater with Mary's name on it — telling Haylee her faith had been an encouragement, that God is using her right there in that place. Haylee wasn't trying to be a witness. She was just being a mother in a hard place. That's exactly why it landed. Keep praying for Mary.This week's pour: Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Straight Bourbon from Nevada H&C Distilling out of Las Vegas. 59.29% ABV — hand-written on the bottle, so every batch runs a little different. Hot, full-flavored, plenty of grit. Jim's yummy scale gave it a 6.0, which broke the scale, because the scale apparently only went to four until tonight.Then the real work. The spiritual significance of manual labor. Summer's coming — the season of labor — and the guys make the case that work isn't a curse of the fall. Adam was tending the garden before sin entered the world. His very name comes from the dirt — adamah — made from it, named for it, made to work it. St. Augustine: what's more wonderful than to watch God's creation respond to human hands? Aquinas gives his four reasons for manual labor — obtain your livelihood, remove idleness, curb concupiscence ("I'm almost too tired to sin"), and give alms from the surplus. And the deeper distinction: servile work, done out of necessity, and liberal work, done for the sake of rest. We don't work to work. We work so we can look at what we've made, see that it is good, and rest. Same thing a man does in the soil, he does for his wife — order the environment so the thing entrusted to him can thrive. Protect, provide, establish.It's hard. It's supposed to be. What did you think hard was going to be? The man who can fix things is a threat to the throwaway culture — and the same will that fixes a thing is the will that prays the rosary on the morning you'd rather not. Raise your glass.TOPICS COVEREDAdam grinding his kid's bathroom doorknob into shards with an angle grinder after his son John got locked inDave nearly Hulk-smashing a toilet seat in a fit of rage — and the guardian angel that stopped himHow resisting the rage earned Dave a free $1,600 American Standard toilet under a lifetime warrantyBaby Mary update — off the breathing tube for 24 hours, re-intubated, long road still aheadThe Minihans looking at hiring a full-time nanny with the kids out of schoolThe handwritten note and crochet sweater a stranger left Lady Haylee at the NICUHow you carry suffering as a Christian can be a witness even when you're not trying to be oneBourbon of the week: Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Straight Bourbon, Nevada H&C Distilling, 59.29% ABVJim's yummy scale hitting 6.0 and breaking its own four-point ceilingWhy we even have to talk about manual labor when it used to be everybody's daily lifeAttention as agency — guarding what you direct your mind toward in a world built to fracture itAcedia, apathy, and becoming a cog flung to and fro like Francesca in Dante's ninth circle"The world fears the man who can fix things" — Fr. Mori of Clear Creek AbbeyThrowaway culture and why things are programmed now instead of built to be repairedAdam's M6 Marketing memo on "character without exception" — work and life are one line, not twoManual labor in Genesis — Adam tending the garden before the fall, not afterAdamah — why the first man was made from dirt, named for dirt, and made to work itSt. Augustine on God's creation responding to human handsAquinas's four necessities of manual labor: livelihood, removing idleness, curbing concupiscence, giving alms"I'm almost too tired to sin" — why a hard day's work curbs temptationServile work vs. liberal work — laboring out of necessity vs. laboring for the sake of restJosef Pieper and the Catholic mind: we work so that we can restWhy hard is supposed to be hard, and how it trains the willChoosing to pray the rosary on the morning you've already decided you won'tSelf-sacrificial love — doing the dishes when you don't want to, because she shouldn't have toPrayer as both work and rest — peace as the tranquility of order in this life, rest in the nextWhy unstructured, leisurely time is where the desire to write, paint, and create actually surfacesPassing the habit of manual labor — and the courage to fix things — down to your kids"It's not about the nail" — the philosophy of life behind refusing to just throw things awayREFERENCED IN THIS EPISODEBooks & Writings:In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity by Josef PieperLeisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper (Pieper's broader work on work and rest)Adam's Substack, The Grounded Builder — recent article on five overlooked books worth readingThe Book of Genesis (the creation and naming of Adam; the call to tend the garden)Dante's Inferno (the ninth circle; Francesca in the second circle, flung to and fro)Shakespeare's As You Like It (staged locally by the Sheard family and other homeschool families)Saints & Historical Figures:St. Thomas Aquinas (the four necessities of manual labor; servile vs. liberal work)St. Augustine ("what is more wonderful than to observe the workings of nature...")Adam (the first man — adamah, made from and for the dirt)People:Adam Minihan (host; founder of M6 Marketing; writes The Grounded Builder on Substack)Dave Niles (host)Jim (in studio — keeper of the yummy scale; shipping Patreon gifts; prays with Hallow)Fr. Mori of Clear Creek Abbey ("the world fears the man who can fix things")Brandon Sheard (quoted the same line; the Sheard family staged the Shakespeare production)Dan (Dave's father-in-law — never trusted a man who works with music on in the background)Josef Pieper ("the peepster" — Adam's favorite German philosopher)Bob Ross (Dave's aspirational painting instructor)Lady Haylee MinihanLady Pamela NilesPrograms & Institutions:Clear Creek AbbeyHallow (prayer app — Jim uses it; not a sponsor)M6 Marketing (Adam's company)SPONSOR BLOCKSponsor: Select International Tours — selectinternationaltours.comWhen Adam and Dave decided to lead their first pilgrimage, one name kept coming up: Select International Tours. They're the best. Having used them, the guys can vouch for it. Wherever in the world you want to go, Select has a tour ready. Whether you're looking to lead a pilgrimage or attend one, head to selectinternationaltours.com and see everything they offer. You won't regret it.Support the show: patreon.com/thecatholicmanshow — Patreon gifts are shipping out again, and the Catholic Man Show Glencairn glass is being paused soon (maybe back around Christmas). If you want one, become a patron now — you've got about four minutes.

JAMIE GARNER - Actor & Playwright Jamie is a multi-hyphenate artist of many skills, many accents, and many passports. They began their career performing in children's theatre across Australia, before performing, teaching, and writing with American regional theatres, then training and working in London as a writer, performer, and voiceover artist. Their directorial debut ‘Pieces of Us' (EdFringe) was Offie-nominated, and they served as Movement Consultant for Lionwoman Productions, Texas. They have recently returned home to Melbourne, appearing as Touchstone in As You Like It with Melbourne Shakespeare Company in 2025. Their newest play HUNGRY JOHANNES will be performed as a work-in-progress in the upcoming Explorations season at La Mama in Melbourne. In this episode, Jamie chats with me about the rollercoaster ride of pursuing a life in theatre and arts; how their experience of acting has been different in different parts of the globe; outlines how they go from concept to creation when making a show; and, of course, delves into why they believe theatre and arts are essential in our world. Jamie shares some insights into what we can expect from their upcoming show, HUNGRY JOHANNES, which is showing at La Mama in June. Tickets to the show and more information about La Mama's incredible Explorations Season can be found at http://lamama.com.au

HVS opens theater in Philipstown Standing under the curving wooden proscenium of the just-finished Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center in Philipstown, Davis McCallum recalled the moment last month when he showed the company's actors the building for the first time. Some of them were speechless, said McCallum, the artistic director of Hudson Valley Shakespeare. Some cheered, danced or sang. Some hugged him. But the actors who had been part of the troupe for years, performing under a seasonal tent at Boscobel and then at its current home, the former Garrison Golf Course on Route 9, said it felt like a homecoming. "It's hard to overstate the commitment that a person makes when you decide you want to be a theater actor," said McCallum. "There's not a lot of glory; there's not a lot of remuneration. You do it for the love of the craft and the art of theater. To have a space dedicated to exactly that feels like a real validation for the company." "It's as simple as it needs to be, and it provides everything you could need to do your job very well," added Kendra Ekelund, the managing director. HVS provided the media — reporters from The New York Times, Times Union, Times of London and NY1, among others — with a sneak peek on Thursday (May 14) during the building's ribbon-cutting. The public will be able to visit the 451-seat theater for the first time during an open house with tours and music on Sunday (May 17), 599 days after the 2024 groundbreaking. Once the season opens on June 10 with previews of As You Like It, the HVS grounds will be open to the public from dawn to dusk. "The golf course was a place that people were already very accustomed to walking their dogs and having access to, and we wanted to maintain that and honor the incredible opportunity that receiving this land is by sharing it with our neighbors as a public good," said Ekelund. "And there's great birding here," said architect Jeanne Gang. Gang is a founder of Studio Gang, a past recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2019. Her work has been hailed for incorporating sustainability in surprising and practical ways. The WMS Boathouse at Clark Park doubles as a stormwater management system for the Chicago River, diverting runoff from the sewers and the river itself. The Gilder Center, which opened in 2023 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, swirls around a towering atrium that lets in enough natural light and air circulation to drastically lower the building's energy demands. Even the roof of Studio Gang's Chicago office has been transformed into an urban prairie, with nearly 100 species of native wildflowers. Before the May 14 ceremony, Gang and Ekelund showed off the features they hope will qualify it to become the country's first purpose-built theater rated LEED Platinum, the highest possible rating offered by the U.S. Green Building Council. Some features, such as solar panels and dots on the soaring windows to prevent bird collisions, are obvious. But tucked behind an elegant green room where actors will relax before performances sits a massive tank that captures rain from the roof to flush the toilets. Photos by Ross Corsair "It was important for us to be water-conscious because the golf course had been such a large user of water," said Studio Gang's Teo Quintana, the project leader. The theater presents a stark contrast from what HVS actors, technicians and audience members experienced for decades under the tent at Boscobel. No longer will crew members have to fight off raccoons determined to chew through lighting cables, or audience members sit behind support poles, or actors use dressing rooms outfitted with folding chairs, card tables and black curtains thrown over pipes. The crew will also no longer have to stay up until 2 a.m. after each performance to shake sand from the costumes and drive for miles to an off-site laundry r...

Casting director Ben Armstrong co-hosts The West End Frame Show! Ben joins Andrew Tomlins (West End Frame's Editor) to discuss Billy Nevers' album The First 25: Live At Konk Studios and Hercules starring Felipe Bejarano as well as the latest news about Evita's Broadway transfer, High School Musical's London transfer, Rent's West End revival, new Hamilton casting, and lots more.Ben is an Anglo-Sri Lankan Casting Director, specialising in stage and musical theatre. He has solo and assistant casting credits for acclaimed productions in the West End, regional theatres, UK tours and international projects. Most recently, Ben cast the West End concert production of Once On This Island featuring Tony Award winner Alex Newell and is currently casting Rumi: The Musical, written by Nadim Naaman and Dana Al Fardan for the Dubai Opera Festival 2026. One of his highlights as Casting Director includes Happy & Glorious, a short film starring Jane Asher and Nancy Carroll. Alongside his independent projects, Ben works for Ginny Schiller CDG. Recent productions include Sir Trevor Nunn's Easy Virtue for Cambridge Arts Theatre starring Greta Scacchi and Alice Orr-Ewing, Ralph Fiennes' As You Like It for Theatre Royal Bath starring Dame Harriet Walter, and John Doyle's Alfred Hitchcock Presents for Theatre Royal Bath starring Scarlett Strallen, Sally Ann Triplett and Alistair Brammer, as well as The Secret Garden for York Theatre Royal.He is the founder of RepresentAsian, an initiative dedicated to championing Asian performers within the industry and advancing meaningful representation both on and off stage. Through this platform, he also provides scholarships to support young Asian individuals pursuing careers in the arts.The next RepresentAsian concert takes place at the Lyric Theatre on Monday 9th November 2026. Visit www.nimaxtheatres.com for info and tickets. Follow Ben on Instagram: @ben_armstrong_4 This podcast is hosted by Andrew Tomlins. @AndrewTomlins32 Thanks for listening!Email: andrew@westendframe.co.ukVisit westendframe.co.uk for more info about our podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Film Ireland podcast, Gemma Creagh sits down with Dungannon actor Fra Fee to chat about his impressive catalogue of work that spans stage, film & TV, while delving into those key moments that shaped his career.From his breakout screen role as Courfeyrac in Les Misérables to performances in local films including Animals & Boys From County Hell, Fra has built a strong presence on screen, balancing indie projects against large-scale productions like Hawkeye on Disney+ & Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon.Now, Unchosen is available to stream on Netflix, in which he plays the enigmatic & manipulative Sam. Fra discusses his approach to this complex, morally ambiguous role, the contrast in working across different mediums, & how he develops a character from script to performance.This podcast has been made possible with the support of the Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland Stakeholders Fund.Listen now to the podcast on SoundCloud, Apple, Spotify, Acast & Amazon, subscribe to Film Ireland wherever you get your podcasts or watch the original recording back:https://www.filmireland.net/podcast-actor-fra-fee-unchosen-rebel-moon-hawkeyeAbout Fra FeeImmediately after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music, Dungannon actor Fra landed a role in the West End production of Dirty Dancing. Since then, he has worked consistently across stage & screen. Recently, Fra Fee starred in the leading role of Emcee in the Olivier Award-winning production of Cabaret in the West End. Fra also appeared in Jez Butterworth's critically acclaimed run, The Ferryman at the Royal Court Theatre, London's West End & on Broadway. Fra won the 2018 WhatsOnStage Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Play, for his role in the show. Fra's other theatre credits include Translations & As You Like It, both at the National Theatre, the World Premiere of The Wind in the Willows, & the title role in Candide at the Menier Chocolate Factory. On screen, Fra is known for his portrayal of Courfeyrac in Tom Hooper's film adaptation of Les Misérables. In 2021, he appeared as Kazi in the Disney+ series Hawkeye, which is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He worked with director Zack Snyder, starring as Balisarius in Rebel Moon Part 1 & 2. He also had roles in Animals, Boys From County Hell, Pixie & The Laureate.UnchosenAll six episodes are available to stream on Netflix now.Molly Windsor & Asa Butterfield (Sex Education) star alongside Christopher Eccleston, Siobhan Finneran, & Fra in the series from Intergalactic writer/creator Julie Gearey. This psychological thriller takes viewers behind the closed doors of a fictional conservative religious sect.Unchosen follows Rosie, who lives in a cloistered Christian community with her husband, Adam (Butterfield) & their daughter. The fateful arrival of the mysterious Sam, an escaped prisoner, throws into relief the reality & restraints of Rosie's world: Perhaps her hidden religious community doesn't have her best interests at heart. As cracks begin to appear in Rosie & Adam's marriage, Sam presents himself as Rosie's savior. But with his dark criminal past, where does the greatest danger lie - with the cult, or with Sam?Sam is an escaped convict who was arrested as a teen for a deadly crime. He quickly integrates himself into the fellowship & uses his powers of coercion to become a pillar of the community. While balancing an affair with Rosie & flirtation with Adam, Sam lives in fear of being sent back to prison. “He is fiercely intelligent, highly manipulative, & able to get what he wants by abusing other characters' insecurities or their weaknesses,” Fee tells Tudum. “A lot of the time, I don't think it's necessarily premeditated. He's just very reactionary & a real survivor.” Figuring out how to play Sam was a lesson in embracing the grey areas. Because the character's intentions were often murky & complex, Gearey encouraged Fee to never “fully dot the i's or cross the t's” in scenes. “There always had to be room for an alternative intention,” Fee explains. Over the years, the podcast has featured acclaimed guests such as Phyllida Lloyd, Lenny Abrahamson, M. Night Shyamalan, John Boorman, Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell, Aisha Tyler, Colm Meaney, Paul Reiser, Niamh Algar, David Freyne, Ciarán Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, John Crowley, Niamh Algar, Gene Stupnitsky, and Terence Davies, alongside many of the most influential voices working in film and television today.So make sure to subscribe and listen back! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary This episode is dedicated to Tolkien superfan Stephen Colbert. May he return to The Colbert Report! No matter what, we know that he will go on to far, far better things than the crumbling edifice that was once known as CBS. Notes 1/ George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series 2/ Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892 (and died September 2, 1973). Tolkien’s imagined etymologies are phenomenal. 3/ Jane Yolen’s Sister Light, Sister Dark and White Jenna 4/ David Salo–a UW-Madison Alum and Tolkien linguist 5/ Winnie-the-Pooh lives outside the Hundred Acre Wood (thank you A.A. Milne). The Forest of Arden is the main location for Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Birnum Wood “marches” against Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Scottish play. 6/ Wagner’s Ring Cycle: Der Ring des Nibelungen. He wrote it between 1848-1874. The first opera (Das Rheingold) premiered in 1869, and all four premiered as a cycle in 1876. 7/ We miss you Tom Stoppard (Travesties, 1974). 8/ Übermensch (defined by Nietzsche, ruined by certain WWII Germans) 9/ Nope, we’re still watching Putin teeter! 10/ Wagner is basing his cycle on the Old Norse Edda, the Völsunga Saga, the Thidrekssaga, and the Nibelungenlied. 11/ Giorgia Meloni was elected Prime Minister of Italy in 2022. 12/ Renee Vink, “‘Jewish’ Dwarves: Tolkien and Anti-Semitic Stereotyping,” in Tolkien Studies Vol. 10 (2013): 123-145. 13/ Terry Pratchett is the best! Check out Discworld. Also, here’s a nice thread on the fact he isn’t a TERF. 14/ Just for fun, here’s Jon Stewart’s rant on the goblins in Harry Potter. Enjoy! 15/ Christopher Tolkien’s NYT obituary: “Christopher Tolkien, Keeper of His Father’s Legacy, Dies at 95.”

As You Like It Folger TheatreApril 20, 2026 How should an actor approach Shakespeare's language? Is the focus on rehearsing delivery, or on cultivating presence in the moment? Director Timothy Douglas credits the teachings of Tina Packer and Kristin Linklater for shaping his approach to helping actors “own” Shakespeare. His latest collaboration, As You Like It, at the Folger Theatre in Washington, DC runs through April 19. The quote we talk about in the interview: As You Like It; Act 4, Scene 1: (spoken by Rosalind, disguised as Ganymede to Jacques in Act 4, scene 1) 24. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then 25. to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes 26. and poor hands. Click here to go to the Folger Website.

This week on the Queer News podcast Anna DeShawn reports, in top news The Supreme Court has made a decision in the conversion therapy case Chiles v. Salazar. We mourn the loss of Black Trans Activist and drag performer Shyyell Diamond Sanchez-McCray, and in politics, state representative Malcolm Kenyatta sponsored a bill in Pennsylvania to protect marriage equality and it passed. In culture and entertainment, studies find that 85% of Americans support trans-rights, Elliot Page to introduce an all trans and non-binary cast production of Shakespear's As You Like It, and Ironman's first all-trans relay team places third. Let's get into it.   Want to support this podcast?

Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues   Tracy Kidder (1945-2026):  Pulitzer Winning Non-Fiction Author Tracy Kidder (1945-2026), Pulitzer Prize winning author of literary non-fiction, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded in the KPFA studios during the book tour for “Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness, ” which focuses on the extraordinary true story of Deo, a young man who arrives in America from Burundi in search of a new life. Tracy Kidder, who died of lung cancer on March 24, 2026 at the age of eighty, was best known for his literary journalism, for turning non-fiction narratives into literary masterpieces. The author of eleven books, he won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1982 for The Soul of A New Machine, which looked at the tech environment during the birth of the modern computer. His 1990 book, Among Schoolchildren, a close look at American education, focusing on twenty students in a Massachusetts elementary school, won several literary awards. In the years after the interview, Tracy Kidder went on to write three more non-fiction books. His final book to date, Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People was published in 2023. Paul Farmer, the subject of Tracy Kidder's 2003 book “Mountains Beyond Mountains”, died in February, 2022.   Joseph Kanon: Spy Thriller Novelist Joseph Kanon, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky, recorded June 17, 2017 during the book tour for the spy thriller “Defectors.” Over the course of the last thirty years, Joseph Kanon has established himself as one of the best spy novelists around, in the vein of John Le Carre, Alan Furst, Graham Greene and Eric Ambler. His latest novel, “Defectors,” is about what happens after a Soviet mole defects to Russia. What is their life like? What happens then? Set in the early 1960s, “Defectors,” through copious research, sets up what life must have been like for people like Kim Philby and other Russian spies forced to leave the West to survive. Joseph Kanon's most recent novel, “Shanghai” was published in 2024.   Review of “The Goat or Who Is Sylvia”” at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through April 28, 2026.     Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links updated April 14, 2026 Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors' positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others for shorter periods each week. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended. Book Stores Bay Area Book Festival  See website for highlights from the 110th Annual Bay Area Book Festival, May 31 – June 1, 2025. Book Passage.  Monthly Calendar. Mix of on-line and in-store events. Books Inc.  Mix of on-line and in-store events. The Booksmith.  Monthly Event Calendar. BookShop West Portal. Monthly Event Calendar. Center for Literary Arts, San Jose. See website for Book Club guests in upcoming months. Green Apple Books. Events calendar. Kepler's Books  On-line Refresh the Page program listings. Live Theater Companies Actors Ensemble of Berkeley.  See website for readings and events. Actor's Reading Collective (ARC).  See website for upcoming productions. African American Art & Culture Complex. See website for calendar. American Conservatory Theatre  ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||. through April 19, Strand Theatre. Hamnet, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, April 22 – May 24, Toni Rembe (Geary).  Awesome Theatre Company. See website for information. BATS Improv Improvised theatre. See website for schedule. BATS Bayfront Theatre, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. Berkeley Playhouse. Cats, May 22 – June 21.  Berkeley Rep. The Monsters by Ngozi Anyanwu, March 27 – May 3, Peets Theatre. The Lunchbox, World Premiere Musical, May 17 – June 28, Berkeley Shakespeare Company See website for upcoming productions. Brava Theatre Center: See calendar for events listings. BroadwaySF: Hadestown, April 21 -26,  Orpheum.  Hells Kitchen, May 6 – 24, Orpheum. See website for complete listings for the Orpheum, Golden Gate and Curran Theaters. note: BroadwaySF is now ATG Tickets. Broadway San Jose:  Les Miserables, April 29 – May 3. Back to the Future, June 2 – 7. The Sound of Music, July 21-26, Center REP: Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon, March 29 – April 19. Central Stage. See website for upcoming productions, 5221 Central Avenue, Richmond Central Works The Prince, Parts I & 2 by Gary Graves, July 18 – Sept. 26. Rotating. See website for schedule. Cinnabar Theatre. The Christians by Lucas Hnath, April 10-26, The Secret Garden, June 12 – 28. Club Fugazi. Dear San Francisco, ongoing. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Contra Costa Civic Theatre A Chorus Line, June 6 – 21, 2026. See website for other events and concerts. Golden Thread  Festival of Palestinian Art, April 9-19, Potrero Stage..See website for details and specifics. Hillbarn Theatre: The Play That Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields, April 23 – May 17. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. 2026 season: Sistahfriend by Phaedra Tillery-Boughton, Magic Theatre, May 15-17; African Stew by Dr. Lisa B. Thompson, Sept. 10-27. Magic Theatre; Soulful Christmas, December, Magic Theatre. Los Altos Stage Company. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Tom Stoppard, April 16 – May 10. Lower Bottom Playaz  See website for upcoming productions. Magic Theatre. A Back with Two Beasts Productions presents Shades and Shadows, a world premiere play by William Brasse, April 30 – May 3. Marin Shakespeare Company: La Comedia of Errors, April 17 – May 10, As You Like It, June 19 – July 19, Julius Caesar, August 14 – Setpember 13, See website for schedule. Marin Theatre:  60th Anniversary Gala, April 19. Pictures from Home by Sharr White, May 7-31. Masquers Playhouse, Point Richmond. The Gods of Comedy by Ken Ludwig, April 24 – May 17. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Closed. SF Chronicle gift article. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) how to make an American Son By Christopher Oscar Peña, Walker Theatre, April 3 – May 10. Silent Movie written & directed by Stephanie Temple, April 24 – May 3, Tucker Theatre. New Performance Traditions.  See website for upcoming schedule Oakland Theater Project. Assassins, March 29 – extended to April 19. The House of Bernarda Alba by by Federico Garcia Lorca, adapted by Chay Yew, May 22 – June 7. The Fre by Taylor Mac, June 18-28. Odd Salon: Upcoming events in San Francisco & New York, and streaming. Palace of Fine Arts Theater.  See website for event listings. Pear Theater. Anon(ymous) an adaptation of the Odyssey, by Naomi Iizuka, April 18 – May 3, God of Carnage by Yazmina Reza, June 12 – 28. See website for staged readings and other events. Playful People Productions. See website for classes and upcoming events. . Presidio Theatre. See website for complete schedule of events and performances. Ray of Light: Mean Girls The Musical. May 1 – 30. Urinetown, July 31 – August 29. New Venue: The Barbary Stage (formerly The Gateway), Jackson Square, SF. Ross Valley Players: See website for New Works Sunday night readings and other events. San Francisco Playhouse. Flex by Candrice Jones. March 26 – May 7.. SFBATCO.  See website for streaming and in- theater shows. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Shakespeare on Tour: Julius Caesar, through May. See website for more information. San Jose Stage Company: See website for events and upcoming season Shotgun Players.  The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia by Edward Albee, extended to May 3, and cannot extend further. South Bay Musical Theatre:  On The Twentieth Century, April 19-20. SPARC: See website for upcoming events. Stagebridge: See website for events and productions. Storytime every 4th Saturday. The Breath Project. Streaming archive. The Marsh: Calendar listings for Berkeley, San Francisco and Marshstream. Theatre Lunatico  See website for upcoming productions.. Theatre Rhino  La Cage aux Folles, May 7 – June 7. Streaming: Essential Services Project, conceived and performed by John Fisher, all weekly performances now available on demand. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Come from Away,  April 15 – May 10, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.The Employee Dharma Handbook by Geetha Ready, world premiere, July 8 – Aug 2, Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto. Word for Word.  See website for upcoming productions. Misc. Listings: BAMPFA: On View calendar for Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Berkeley Symphony: See website for listings. Chamber Music San Francisco: Calendar, 2025 Season. Dance Mission Theatre. On stage events calendar. Fort Mason Center. Events calendar. Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Calendar listings and upcoming shows. San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. See schedule for upcoming SFGMC performances. San Francisco Opera. Calendar listings. San Francisco Symphony. Calendar listings. Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog. League of Livestream Theatre: See website for streaming plays. If you'd like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write Richard@kpfa.org   . y. The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – April 2, 2026 – Tracy Kidder – Joseph Kanon appeared first on KPFA.

Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues   From the Probabilities Archive: E. Hoffman Price, Fantasy & Science Fiction Pulp Writer E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988), fantasy and science fiction author who published in various pulp magazines from the 1920s into the 1950s, in conversation with Probabiliaties hosts Richard Wolinsky, Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson, recorded in early 1979 at Price's home in Redwood City, California. E. Hoffman Price, who was born 1898 and died shortly before his 90th birthday in 1988, wrote fantasy and science fiction stories for the pulp magazines of the first half of the twentieth century, along with some non-fiction. Mostly forgotten today, though several of his stories are available in small press editions, his claim to fame is a single collaboration with the great horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, titled “Through the Gates of the Silver Key,” a sequel to Lovecraft's story, “The Silver Key.” A contributor to Weird Tales, he was also friends with two other writers from the magazine, Seabury Quinn and Clark Ashton Smith, as well as with the longtime editor of Weird Tales, Farnsworth Wright. He also knew Otis Adelbert Kline, famous in his day for writing imitations of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the interview, Price talks about his writing career, his friendships with H.P. Lovecraft, horror writer Seabury Quinn, adventure writer Otis Adelbert Kline, and horror master Clark Ashton Smith. The Probabilities radio show first went on the air on KPFA in 1977. Within a year, my co-host Lawrence Davidson was on the trail for old pulp writers and editors, egged on by science fiction and fantasy author Richard A. Lupoff, who officially joined the show a couple of years later. This interview, following on the heels of interviews with pulp science fiction author Stanton A. Coblentz and editor Charles Hornig, was conducted at Price's house in Redwood City, California, most likely in the spring of 1979. Accompanying Dick, Lawrence and myself were Dick's wife Pat Lupoff and science fiction fanzine editor Jim Purviance. Over two hours were recorded on multiple tapes, and parts of the transcription can be found in the book Space Ships Ray Guns Martian Octopods: Interviews with Science Fiction Legends. The interview was digitized and then remastered using AI technology first, and then edited for clarity and coherence. Some outtakes exist which I can forward by email via richard@kpfa.org. The unpublished memoir Price discusses in the interview, Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear, Fictioneers and Others was eventually published posthumously, in 2001. The interview opens with a question by Richard A. Lupoff. Several collections of stories by E. Hoffman Price were published in 2017 by Wildside Press, and are available both digitally and in print. The interview was digitized, remastered and edited in March 2026. This interview was first heard in a very truncated version in 1979 and has not been aired until now. The complete 68-minute interview can be heard here.   Rob Nillson: Award-Winning Independent Film-maker Rob Nillson is a Bay Area based maverick filmmaker. The winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1979 for Northern Lights and the Grand Prize at Sundance for Heat and Sunlight in 1988, he continues to make independently distributed films. A documentary about the life and work of Rob Nillson, titled The Way Things Seem to Be, introduced by Rob Nillson and the documentary's director, Zahn Petrov, gets its world premiere at the Christopher Smith San Rafael Film Center this coming sunday, March 29th at 12 noon, and for more information you can go to cafilm.org. This interview was part of a larger interview about the life and work of filmmaker David Schickele.     Review of “Assassins” at Oakland Theatre Project through April 5, 2026.e     Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors' positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others for shorter periods each week. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended. Book Stores Bay Area Book Festival  See website for highlights from the 110th Annual Bay Area Book Festival, May 31 – June 1, 2025. Book Passage.  Monthly Calendar. Mix of on-line and in-store events. Books Inc.  Mix of on-line and in-store events. The Booksmith.  Monthly Event Calendar. BookShop West Portal. Monthly Event Calendar. Center for Literary Arts, San Jose. See website for Book Club guests in upcoming months. Green Apple Books. Events calendar. Kepler's Books  On-line Refresh the Page program listings. Live Theater Companies Actors Ensemble of Berkeley.  See website for readings and events. Actor's Reading Collective (ARC).  See website for upcoming productions. African American Art & Culture Complex. See website for calendar. American Conservatory Theatre  ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||. through April 19, Strand Theatre. Hamnet, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, April 22 – May 24.  Awesome Theatre Company. See website for information. BATS Improv Improvised theatre. See website for schedule. BATS Bayfront Theatre, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. Berkeley Playhouse. Once, February 20 – March 29.  Berkeley Rep. All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Feb. 20 – March 29, Roda Theatre. The Monsters by Ngozi Anyanwu, March 27 – May 3, Peets Theatre. Berkeley Shakespeare Company See website for upcoming productions. Brava Theatre Center: See calendar for events listings. BroadwaySF: MJ The Musical, March 24 – April 5, Orpheum. Hadestown, April 21 -26,  Orpheum.  Hells Kitchen, May 6 – 24, Orpheum. See website for complete listings for the Orpheum, Golden Gate and Curran Theaters. note: BroadwaySF is now ATG Tickets. Broadway San Jose:  Beetlejuice, March 31 – April 5. Les Miserables, April 29 – May 3. Back to the Future, June 2 – 7. The Sound of Music, July 21-26, Center REP: Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon, March 29 – April 19. Central Stage. See website for upcoming productions, 5221 Central Avenue, Richmond Central Works After Happy by Patricia Milton, Feb. 28 – March 29. Cinnabar Theatre. The Christians by Lucas Hnath, April 10-26, The Secret Garden, June 12 – 28. Club Fugazi. Dear San Francisco, ongoing. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Contra Costa Civic Theatre A Chorus Line, June 6 – 21, 2026. See website for other events and concerts. Golden Thread  Festival of Palestinian Art, April 9-19, Potrero Stage..See website for details and specifics. Hillbarn Theatre: The Play That Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields, April 23 – May 17. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. 2026 season: Sistahfriend by Phaedra Tillery-Boughton, Magic Theatre, May 15-17; African Stew by Dr. Lisa B. Thompson, Sept. 10-27. Magic Theatre; Soulful Christmas, December, Magic Theatre. Los Altos Stage Company. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Tom Stoppard, April 16 – May 10. Lower Bottom Playaz  See website for upcoming productions. Magic Theatre. Macbeth, translated and adapted by Migdalia Cruz. Extended through April 12. Marin Shakespeare Company: La Comedia of Errors, April 17 – May 10, As You Like It, June 19 – July 19, Julius Caesar, August 14 – Setpember 13, See website for schedule. Marin Theatre:  60th Anniversary Gala, April 19. Pictures from Home by Sharr White, May 7-31. Masquers Playhouse, Point Richmond. The Gods of Comedy by Ken Ludwig, April 24 – May 17. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Closed. SF Chronicle gift article. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC)  Gods and Monsters based on the novel by Christopher Bram, written and adapted by Tom Mullen, March 6 – April 5. New Performance Traditions.  See website for upcoming schedule Oakland Theater Project. Assassins, March 29 – April 5. The House of Bernarda Alba by by Federico Garcia Lorca, adapted by Chay Yew, May 22 – June 7. The Fre by Taylor Mac, June 18-28. Odd Salon: Upcoming events in San Francisco & New York, and streaming. Palace of Fine Arts Theater.  See website for event listings. Pear Theater. Anon(ymous) an adaptation of the Odyssey, by Naomi Iizuka, April 18 – May 3, God of Carnage by Yazmina Reza, June 12 – 28. See website for staged readings and other events. Playful People Productions. See website for classes and upcoming events. . Presidio Theatre. See website for complete schedule of events and performances. Ray of Light: Mean Girls The Musical. May 1 – 30. Urinetown, July 31 – August 29. Ross Valley Players: See website for New Works Sunday night readings and other events. San Francisco Playhouse. Flex by Candrice Jones. March 26 – May 7.. SFBATCO.  See website for streaming and in- theater shows. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Shakespeare on Tour: Julius Caesar, through May. See website for more information. San Jose Stage Company: See website for events and upcoming season Shotgun Players.  The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia by Edward Albee, March 21 – April 19. South Bay Musical Theatre:  On The Twentieth Century, April 19-20. SPARC: See website for upcoming events. Stagebridge: See website for events and productions. Storytime every 4th Saturday. The Breath Project. Streaming archive. The Marsh: Calendar listings for Berkeley, San Francisco and Marshstream. Theatre Lunatico  See website for upcoming productions.. Theatre Rhino  Streaming: Essential Services Project, conceived and performed by John Fisher, all weekly performances now available on demand. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, March 4 – 29, Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto. Word for Word.  See website for upcoming productions. Misc. Listings: BAMPFA: On View calendar for Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Berkeley Symphony: See website for listings. Chamber Music San Francisco: Calendar, 2025 Season. Dance Mission Theatre. On stage events calendar. Fort Mason Center. Events calendar.Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Calendar listings and upcoming shows. San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. See schedule for upcoming SFGMC performances. San Francisco Opera. Calendar listings. San Francisco Symphony. Calendar listings. Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog. League of Livestream Theatre: See website for streaming plays. If you'd like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write Richard@kpfa.org   . y. The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – March 26, 2026: Pulp Magazine Author E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988) appeared first on KPFA.

Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues   Terry McMillan: Best-Selling Author, “Waiting to Exhale,” 2001 Terry McMillan, best-selling novelist in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky, recorded February 13, 2001 while on tour for her novel, A Day Late and a Dollar Short. Terry McMillan's novels focus on the lives, aspirations and journeys of discovery of African American women and their families. She hit the ground running with her first novel, Mama, in 1987, which she helped turn into a best-seller. She followed that with a series of novels that helped create a large fan base for her work. Among her best known novels are Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, along with Disappearing Acts, all of which were adapted for film. A Day Late and a Dollar Short is a long novel that focuses on several family members going through a variety of crises and revelations. It was adapted into a television film in 2014 starring Whoopi Goldberg and Ving Rhames, which is now available streaming on Kanopy, the free library app, as well as on other streaming services. This interview leans hard into that novel, with side trips into discussions about black families and black culture in America. As of 2026, she has published ten novels and two works of nonfiction, and according to IMDb is working as a producer for a series of television films under the title Terry McMillan presents. Her most recent novel, It's Not All Downhill from Here, was published in 2020. This interview was digitized, remastered and edited in March 2026 and has not been heard in over twenty years.     Poul Anderson (1926-2001): Science Fiction and Fantasy Legend, recorded 1978 Poul Anderson (1926-2001), noted science fiction and fantasy author, winner of seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards, in conversation with the late Lawrence Davidson, recorded for the Probabilities radio program on KPFA on June 10, 1978. The late Poul Anderson, who died on July 31, 2001 at the age of 74, is considered one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy authors of the twentieth century. He even has an asteroid named in his honor. Known for his hard science writing, in particular his Polysotechnic League series as well as his Landry series and his Time Patrol series, he was also a master of fantasy. There were also historical novels and mysteries. His career began in 1947 at the age of 21 with stories in Astounding Science Fiction, and he became a professional writer a year later. One of his novels became a film, the Hugo nominated novel, The High Crusade, in 1994 about an alien spaceship landing in medieval England. It is currently not streaming in the United States though if you search, you can find a DVD copy. As with many of the writers of the pulp and paperback era, Poul Anderson is ripe for rediscovery. After Probabilities got its start in 1977, it was natural that the Orinda-based writer would become a guest on the show, This short conversation with co-host Lawrence Davidson, recorded June 10, 1978, was likely Davidson's very first solo interview and came before the show's focus turned to the history of modern science fiction. The interview was digitized, remastered and edited on February 22, 2026, using the Adobe Podcast app to remove noise and echo. This interview has not been heard on the radio since its initial airing. Poul Anderson Wikipedia page     Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors' positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others for shorter periods each week. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended. Book Stores Bay Area Book Festival  See website for highlights from the 110th Annual Bay Area Book Festival, May 31 – June 1, 2025. Book Passage.  Monthly Calendar. Mix of on-line and in-store events. Books Inc.  Mix of on-line and in-store events. The Booksmith.  Monthly Event Calendar. BookShop West Portal. Monthly Event Calendar. Center for Literary Arts, San Jose. See website for Book Club guests in upcoming months. Green Apple Books. Events calendar. Kepler's Books  On-line Refresh the Page program listings. Live Theater Companies Actors Ensemble of Berkeley.  See website for readings and events. Actor's Reading Collective (ARC).  See website for upcoming productions. African American Art & Culture Complex. See website for calendar. American Conservatory Theatre  ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||. through April 19, Strand Theatre. Hamnet, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, April 22 – May 24.  Awesome Theatre Company. See website for information. BATS Improv Improvised theatre. See website for schedule. BATS Bayfront Theatre, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. Berkeley Playhouse. Once, February 20 – March 29.  Berkeley Rep. All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Feb. 20 – March 29, Roda Theatre. The Monsters by Ngozi Anyanwu, March 27 – May 3, Peets Theatre. Berkeley Shakespeare Company See website for upcoming productions. Brava Theatre Center: See calendar for events listings. BroadwaySF: MJ The Musical, March 24 – April 5, Orpheum. Hadestown, April 21 -26,  Orpheum.  Hells Kitchen, May 6 – 24, Orpheum. See website for complete listings for the Orpheum, Golden Gate and Curran Theaters. note: BroadwaySF is now ATG Tickets. Broadway San Jose:  Beetlejuice, March 31 – April 5. Les Miserables, April 29 – May 3. Back to the Future, June 2 – 7. The Sound of Music, July 21-26, Center REP: Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon, March 29 – April 19. Central Stage. See website for upcoming productions, 5221 Central Avenue, Richmond Central Works After Happy by Patricia Milton, Feb. 28 – March 29. Cinnabar Theatre. The Christians by Lucas Hnath, April 10-26, The Secret Garden, June 12 – 28. Club Fugazi. Dear San Francisco, ongoing. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Contra Costa Civic Theatre A Chorus Line, June 6 – 21, 2026. See website for other events and concerts. Golden Thread  See website for upcoming events and productions. Hillbarn Theatre: The Play That Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields, April 23 – May 17. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. 2026 season: Sistahfriend by Phaedra Tillery-Boughton, Magic Theatre, May 15-17; African Stew by Dr. Lisa B. Thompson, Sept. 10-27. Magic Theatre; Soulful Christmas, December, Magic Theatre. Los Altos Stage Company. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Tom Stoppard, April 16 – May 10. Lower Bottom Playaz  See website for upcoming productions. Magic Theatre. Macbeth, translated and adapted by Migdalia Cruz. March 18 – April 5. Marin Shakespeare Company: La Comedia of Errors, April 17 – May 10, As You Like It, June 19 – July 19, Julius Caesar, August 14 – Setpember 13, See website for schedule. Marin Theatre:  60th Anniversary Gala, April 19. Pictures from Home by Sharr White, May 7-31. Masquers Playhouse, Point Richmond. The Gods of Comedy by Ken Ludwig, April 24 – May 17. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Closed. SF Chronicle gift article. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC)  Gods and Monsters based on the novel by Christopher Bram, written and adapted by Tom Mullen, March 6 – April 5. New Performance Traditions.  See website for upcoming schedule Oakland Theater Project. Assassins, March 29 – April 5. The House of Bernarda Alba by by Federico Garcia Lorca, adapted by Chay Yew, May 22 – June 7. The Fre by Taylor Mac, June 18-28. Odd Salon: Upcoming events in San Francisco & New York, and streaming. Palace of Fine Arts Theater.  See website for event listings. Pear Theater. Anon(ymous) an adaptation of the Odyssey, by Naomi Iizuka, April 18 – May 3, God of Carnage by Yazmina Reza, June 12 – 28. See website for staged readings and other events. Playful People Productions. See website for classes and upcoming events. . Presidio Theatre. See website for complete schedule of events and performances. Ray of Light: Mean Girls The Musical. May 1 – 30. Urinetown, July 31 – August 29. Ross Valley Players: See website for New Works Sunday night readings and other events. San Francisco Playhouse. Flex by Candrice Jones. March 26 – May 7.. SFBATCO.  See website for streaming and in- theater shows. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Shakespeare on Tour: Julius Caesar, through May. See website for more information. San Jose Stage Company: See website for events and upcoming season Shotgun Players.  The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia by Edward Albee, March 21 – April 19. South Bay Musical Theatre:  On The Twentieth Century, April 19-20. SPARC: See website for upcoming events. Stagebridge: See website for events and productions. Storytime every 4th Saturday. The Breath Project. Streaming archive. The Marsh: Calendar listings for Berkeley, San Francisco and Marshstream. Theatre Lunatico  See website for upcoming productions.. Theatre Rhino  Streaming: Essential Services Project, conceived and performed by John Fisher, all weekly performances now available on demand. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, March 4 – 29, Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto. Word for Word.  See website for upcoming productions. Misc. Listings: BAMPFA: On View calendar for Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Berkeley Symphony: See website for listings. Chamber Music San Francisco: Calendar, 2025 Season. Dance Mission Theatre. On stage events calendar. Fort Mason Center. Events calendar.Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Calendar listings and upcoming shows. San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. See schedule for upcoming SFGMC performances. San Francisco Opera. Calendar listings. San Francisco Symphony. Calendar listings. Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog. League of Livestream Theatre: See website for streaming plays. If you'd like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write Richard@kpfa.org   . The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – March 19, 2026: Best-Selling author Terry McMillan, recorded in 2001 (newly digitized) appeared first on KPFA.

"And one man in his time plays many parts," wrote Shakespeare in As You Like It, "[h]is acts being seven ages." We all know the feeling of passing from one phase to the next. But what happens when something dramatic mashes these acts together? In this episode, Jacke talks to New York Times bestselling author (and HOL superguest) Laurie Frankel about her novel Enormous Wings, in which a woman who should be enjoying her golden years is suddenly forced to contemplate a return to an earlier stage of life. PLUS Shakespeare scholar Rhodri Lewis (Shakespeare's Tragic Art) stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. Will he turn to Shakespeare during his final act, or opt for something else? The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠gabrielruizbernal.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Help support the show at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/literature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megan Thee Stallion to make Broadway debut, Grosff to do ‘As You Like It,’ TLC musical finds leads Every week, Matt Tamanini will bring you the biggest news from across the theatrical landscape and will prepare you for what’s ahead over the next seven days. Any and all feedback is read more

What if the Shakespeares were really a bunch of crumb-bums? Topics in this episode include Shakespeare's brothers Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, which ones Stephen thinks were bad brothers and which were good brothers, whether Shakespeare turned his brothers into villains in his plays, Anne Hathaway's relationship to her brothers-in-law, why Shakespeare's brothers never married, Gilbert and Richard's criminal records, whether Gilbert traveled to London to see As You Like It, Edmund's attempt to become an actor, which one was Shakespeare's favorite brother, wrastlin', brotherly incest and psychoanalysis, Stephen's owned disappeared brother Maurice, and justice for Mr. Best. Support us on Patreon to get episodes early, and to access bonus content and a video version of our podcast. On the Blog: Decoding Dedalus: Saint Thomas' New Viennese School — Blooms & Barnacles Blooms & Barnacles Social Media: Facebook | BlueSky | Instagram Subscribe to Blooms & Barnacles: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

Choice Classic Radio presents Columbia Workshop, which aired from 1936 to 1943, and again from 1946 to 1947. Today we bring to you the episode titled “As You Like It.” Please consider supporting our show by becoming a patron at  http://choiceclassicradio.com We hope you enjoy the show!

Hey EICapulets! To Brooklyn, or to Beckham? That is this week's question.There was simply no way of doing this episode without discussing the biggest news of the week, which is a pretty big statement, all things considered. On Monday evening, Brooklyn Beckham took to his Instagram and posted a series of stories stating that he does not want to reconcile with his family. This comes after years of speculation about a rift between the Beckhams and Brooklyn and Nicola, a lot of which started after their 2022 wedding.We discuss how and why this has taken the internet by storm, and what we make of it all.Next up! Chloe Zhao's Hamnet is based on Maggie O'Farrell's novel of the same name. The fictional story follows Agnes Hathaway (played by Jessie Buckley) and William Shakespeare (played by Paul Mescal) as they lose their son Hamnet to the plague- and how this tragedy births the play Hamlet. Very little is known about Shakespeare's life, so this story has been compared to fan-fiction. But just a lil fact check: several other plays, including two comedies, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It came between the death of Hamnet and the creation of Hamlet, according to The New Yorker.Since the film's release there's been a lot of claims it's "grief porn". We get into it.And lastly, whoever is doing 2016's marketing needs a raise, after a nostalgia-based trend caused what feels like the entire internet to look back a decade to the days of Pokemon Go, Brexit, Beyonce's Lemonade, Trump 1.0, Kylie lip kits and chokers to name but a few big moments and trends. For those of us who were old enough to own phones and participate in the culture and social media back then, throwbacks are aplenty. For those who missed it the first time around, FOMO is in full force. Harper's Bazaar has called 2016 the “last good year”, and Glamour suggested it might be the last time we felt “hopeful”. According to TikTok, searches for 2016 surged by 454% in the first week of the new year and about 229 million posts have been made using their 2016 filter. But why?We hope you enjoy, as always please do rate, review & subscribe!Thank you to Cue for the edit.Beth's been loving: The Silence Of The Lambs (the book), Emily In Paris. Ruchira's been loving Stranger Things and Dying For Sex & Oenone's been loving A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms, The Night ManagerBrooklyn Beckham's statement Ignore the awards – Hamnet is artificial and manipulative Shakespeare fan fiction"HAMNET" FEELSELEMENTAL, BUT IS IT JUST HIGHLY EFFECTIVE GRIEF PORN?Maybe You'll Hate This MovieWas 2016 The Last Good Year? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ahead of The Stud Fundraiser party with The Carry Nation and Prosumer at Public Works, As You Like It spent a little time catching up with one of the longest running DJs in the SF nightlife scene, Steve Fabus. Steve has been on the forefront of the Disco and Underground House community since the 70s. Having seen it all and experienced all aspects of the SF nightlife, we thought we'd get a chance to ask Steve Fabus' thoughts on where the scene has been, where it's going and of course what pivotal role The Stud has to play in the San Francisco Nightlife community. https://www.ayli-sf.com/2024/02/29/ayli-podcast-104-steve-fabus/

Send us a textNARRATOR (WARM, INVITING)Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys,our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museumof Toys and Childhood Artifacts—where the lights are low,the alarms are set,and words wait quietly on the shelves…until someone notices them.NarratorAnd we see the action figure of William Shakespeare - complete with quill - surrounded by a group of alphabet blocks. He continues to talk about his life and literary career.ShakespeareMany scholars believe that it was around this time that I wrote the comedy As You Like It with its famous all the world's a stage monologue.  By the way, the word sans in the last line of this monologue means without - as you can probably tell, much of my language was quite different from today.All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchelAnd shining morning face, creeping like snailUnwillingly to school. And then the lover,Sighing like furnace, with a woeful balladMade to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputationEven in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,In fair round belly with good capon lined,With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,Full of wise saws and modern instances;And so he plays his part. The sixth age shiftsInto the lean and slippered pantaloon,With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wideFor his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish treble, pipesAnd whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.Support the showThank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Broadway newcomer Wesley Wray, currently starring in Buena Vista Social Club, joins host Joel Crump for a new edition of Broadway Time at Carmine's. About Wesley: Wesley Wray (Young Ibrahim) Broadway debut! BFA Musical Theatre student at the University of Michigan (class of ‘26) and proud native of Miami, Florida. Wesley is a member of the Peter London Global Dance Company, celebrated for its distinctive Afro-Caribbean movement style. Wesley's extensive training includes studying at the Alvin Ailey School, where he honed his skills in Martha Graham, Lester Horton, and ballet techniques. He further developed his classical acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he not only performed as Amiens and Silvius in Shakespeare's As You Like It, but also composed the music for the production. While attending Michigan, Wesley has been seen in A Chorus Line (Mike Costa), Guys and Dolls (Harry the Horse), and most recently in Shaina Taub's Twelfth Night (Duke Orsino). His most notable film credit includes working as a stand-in for Little in the Oscar-winning film Moonlight. Wesley is thrilled to make his Broadway debut, originating a role in such a beautiful, culturally enriching production. He is deeply grateful to his community for supporting him in reaching this dream. IG: @wesleywwray "Broadway Time at Carmine's" features Broadway stars over lunch in engaging conversations at the iconic Carmine's Times Square eatery. For more, visit www.BWayTime.com, and follow:

Show notes below: Talking Shit With Tara Cheyenne is a Tara Cheyenne Performance Production www.taracheyenne.com Instagram: @TaraCheyenneTCP  /  FB: https://www.facebook.com/taracheyenneperformance Podcast produced, edited and music by Marc Stewart Music © 2025 Tara Cheyenne Performance   Subscribe/follow share through Podbean and Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts and Spotify.   Donate! To keep this podcast ad-free please go to:  https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/13386   Links:   https://bardonthebeach.org/education/   https://www.taracheyenne.com/carry-the-one   https://www.taracheyenne.com/wet-mess-workshop     About Mary: Mary Hartman (she/her) has combined an academic background and experience as a professional actor and director to create opportunities for people all ages to learn through participating in Shakespeare performance. Mary has played a variety of roles professionally including Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Olivia in Twelfth Night, Horatio in Hamlet and Phebe in As You Like It and has directed productions of Shakespeare's plays in extraordinary situations, from a seven-person workshop of Measure for Measure to Julius Caesar with 150 fourth graders. As Director of Education at Bard on the Beach, she has designed and developed many new programs to inspire community through Shakespeare. She has traveled extensively to share strategies through associations of teachers and theatre professionals. She holds a master's degree from King's College, University of London and a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College, and has received numerous awards and honours.  About Tara: Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, is an award winning creator, performer, choreographer, director, writer, and artistic director of Tara Cheyenne Performance, working across disciplines in film, dance, theatre, and experimental performance. She is renowned as a trailblazer in interdisciplinary performance and as a mighty performer "who defies categorization on any level". Along with her own creations Tara has collaborated with many theatre companies and artists including; Zee Zee Theatre, Bard on the Beach, ItsaZoo Theatre, The Arts Club, Boca De Lupo, Ruby Slippers, The Firehall Arts Centre, Vertigo Theatre (Calgary).  With a string of celebrated solo shows to her credit (including bANGER, Goggles, Porno Death Cult, I can't remember the word for I can't remember, Body Parts, Pants), multidisciplinary collaborations, commissions and boundary bending ensemble creations Tara's work is celebrated both nationally and internationally.  Tara is known for her unique and dynamic hybrid of dance, comedy and theatre. She is sought after for creating innovative movement for theatre and has performed her full length solos and ensemble works around the world (highlights: DanceBase/Edinburgh, South Bank Centre/London, On the Boards/Seattle USA, High Performance Rodeo/Calgary etc.). Recent works include a collaboration with Italian dance/performance artist Silvia Gribaudi, empty.swimming.pool, (Castiglioncello, Bassano, Victoria and Vancouver), ensemble creation, how to be,  which premiered at The Cultch, and her solo I can't remember the word for I can't remember, toured widely, and her newest solo Body Parts has been made into a stunning film which is currently touring virtually. Tara lives on the unceded Coast Salish territories with her partner composer Marc Stewart and their child. 

On this edition of The Arts Section, host Gary Zidek catches up with Chicago-based artist Andi Crist to talk about her new exhibition LIVE, LAUGH, LABOR. The Dueling Critics, Kelly Kleiman and Jonathan Abarbanel, join Gary to talk about a new production of AS YOU LIKE IT. Plus, a report on some new shows on Broadway. And Gary talks to the director of a documentary that tells the story of group of artists who set up a secret apartment inside their local mall for four years.

Episode 188:Following on from the last episode before the run of summer guest conversations we take a sharp swerve from ‘Henry V' to ‘As You Like It'. Although we cannot be quite sure about the chronology in which Shakespeare wrote his plays, or how much the writing of one crossed over with the writing of another, whatever the precise order it is pretty clear that Shakespeare could move freely between the History and Comedy genres and within those how he was always pushing at the edges of the forms and conventions of the theatre and playwrighting to see what could work on stage and with language. ‘As You Like It' is no exception to that. The Dating of the playThe sources for the playThe possible first performance dateA brief synopsis of the playThe use of poetry and prose in the playThe play as part of the ‘Pastoral' genreThe location of the play and influence of the forestThe character of JacquesThe character of RosalindThe character of TouchstoneThe ending, Hyman, and the masqueA summary of the performance history of the playThe epilogueSupport the podcast at:www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.comwww.patreon.com/thoetpwww.ko-fi.com/thoetp Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Hangover Terrace" The Ontario-born Ron Sexsmith is one of the great musical treasures on this weird and troubled planet. And we need him now more than ever. Over the course of his decorated career, the three-time Juno award-winning singer/songwriter has put out close to twenty winning albums and here's a quick note about that--his discography is perfect with not even a trace of a dip of quality. In fact, every album seems to top the last one, which is saying a lot because every album is absolutely brilliant. If this sounds like hyperbole, it's not. From his self-titled album to Cobblestone Runway to Retriever to Blue Boy to Carousel One to his brand new record Hangover Terrace, which is one of the greatest album titles ever, by the way, Ron Sexsmith always delivers the goods. It's hard to think of a musician who sings with such elegant precision and poetic finesse. Like Sinatra or Costello, his phrasing is unique and distinct--all it takes is a syllable of a song and you know instantly know it's him. He's toured with John Hiatt, Squeeze, Coldplay and Nick Lowe and his songs have been covered by folks like Rod Stewart, Nick Lowe, Emmy Lou Harris, Feist, Michael Buble, and Stevie Nicks. His 2017 novel Deer Life, A Fairy Tale is just wonderful and this year he made his theatrical composer debut with the internationally renowned Stratford Festival production of ‘As You Like It' in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. But back to Hangover Terrace. A moving and deeply stirring 14-track song cycle, Hangover Terrace is filled with dark whimsy, wistful ballads and mid-tempo magic. Sexsmith's fluid and free flowing voice is untouched by time, his delivery as free flowing and and as a result this is an album of emotional exactitude and pure indie soul. And this conversation is a real joy. www.ronsexmith.com (http://www.ronsexmith.com) www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.alexgreenbooks.com (http://www.alexgreenbooks.com) https://podcast.feedspot.com/california_music_podcasts/ https://podcast.feedspot.com/california_art_podcasts/ IG + BLUESKY: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

Want to support the podcast? Join our Patreon or buy us a coffee. As an independent podcast, Shakespeare Anyone? is supported by listeners like you. In this mini-episode, we explore the world of the Court Masque, a form of entertainment that flourished in the Tudor and Stuart courts. From its roots in medieval pageantry and music to its height as a vehicle for royal celebration and political display of wealth, the masque became a defining cultural event during Shakespeare's time.  While Shakespeare never wrote a Court Masque, we will explore how Ben Jonson's Hymenaei may have influenced Shakespeare's choices for the masques that appear in As You Like It and The Tempest.  For more on some of the topics we've previously covered that also mention the Court Masque, check out: Mini: Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's Colleague and Competitor Twelfth Night: Plays for the Court Stuff You Should Know Part 2: Elizabethan and Jacobean England & Theatre (Revised) Mini: Traveling Theatre Companies Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp. Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander. Special thanks to Nat Yonce for editing this episode.  For updates: join our email list, follow us on Instagram at @shakespeareanyonepod or visit our website at shakespeareanyone.com You can support the podcast by becoming a patron at patreon.com/shakespeareanyone, buying us coffee, or by shopping our bookshelves at bookshop.org/shop/shakespeareanyonepod (we earn a small commission when you use our link and shop bookshop.org). Find additional links mentioned in the episode in our Linktree. Works referenced: Butler, Martin. “The Court Masque | The Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson.” The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online, 2014, universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/benjonson/k/essays/court_msq_essay/1/.  “History of the Masque Genre.” Edited by Helen L Hull et al., Reformations of A Mask, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, 2000, archive.mith.umd.edu/comus/cegenre.htm#expand.  Shapiro, James. The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2016.   

Today on What's My Frame I'm joined by Casting Professional and Actor, Andrew Dahreddine. Andrew is based between Los Angeles and New York. He is currently casting Lauren Minnerath's debut feature film, CLARE (which has been supported by Sundance, Tribeca, and SXSW); Stacey Maltin and Jay DeYonker's feature film, C-SIDE (working title); and Rebecca Louisell's film, THE TRIP, which is one segment of the upcoming anthology feature film, THROUGH THE BLINDS. Andrew previously worked with Barden/Schnee Casting on television shows for Apple TV+ (the breakout series, PALM ROYALE), Paramount+ (SCHOOL SPIRITS), and ABC (ALASKA DAILY), as well as many films including the upcoming feature, CODE 3 (Rainn Wilson, Lil Rel Howery, and Aimee Carrero); and EZRA (Robert De Niro, Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne).Additional selected casting credits include: the FX limited series, THE PATIENT (starring Steve Carell & Domhnall Gleeson); Aaron Sorkin's Oscar-nominated Netflix feature film, THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7; and the first season of the Emmy-nominated Hulu series, RAMY. Andrew has also been the casting director for many short films that have competed at festivals including SXSW, BFI, SIFF, Palm Springs ShortFest, HollyShorts, Vienna Shorts, and many others.As an actor, Andrew was a series regular on the comedy series, 86'd, for BRIC TV. He also has appeared in many national commercials, and was the lead role in the second season premiere of Homicide City on Investigation Discovery.A BFA graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Andrew has performed in many stage productions, as well. Selected credits include: Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford's epic Macbeth at the Park Avenue Armory; the Lincoln Center Festival's Russian-language adaptation of Miss Julie (dir. Thomas Ostermeier) at NY City Center. He also appeared in several productions with The Drilling Company, and received praise in the New York Times for his performance in their version of As You Like It. Regionally, he spent a season with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, as well as one summer at Boston's Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, in their production of Coriolanus. Andrew is a fierce union advocate, and a proud member of SAG-AFTRA; the Hollywood Teamsters Local 399 - Casting Shop; and Actors Equity Association. #UnionStrongFor more follow Andrew on Instagram @Dramaddine or visit www.andrewdahreddine.com -What's My Frame, hosted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Laura Linda Bradley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the WMF creative community now!Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@whatsmyframe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IMDb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠What's My Frame? official site⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠What's My Frame? merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

On the latest episode of The OnStage Blog Theatre Podcast, Rachel and Jacklyn recap the festival, including the Shakespeare shows they saw (Macbeth, As You Like It, Antony, and Cleopatra). They also discuss Shakespeare's most popular plays, why he remains relevant in 2025, and more. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or YouTube for all the latest episodes!onstageblog.comfacebook.com/onstageblogtwitter.com/onstagebloginstagram.com/onstagebloghttps://www.youtube.com/@onstageblog8213

On Wednesday's show: While a couple candidates appear to have a little bit of an early lead in the special election for the 18th Congressional District, many of the district's voters don't really know -- or have an opinion about -- who's running, according to new polling data. We discuss that, the special session in Austin, and other developments in politics in our weekly roundup.Also this hour: On this date 60 years ago, the legislation creating Medicare and Medicaid was signed into law. We reflect on the history, impact, and future of those federal programs and what they mean to Houstonians.And the Houston Shakespeare Festival returns this week with productions of As You Like It and Henry V. We talk with the band of brothers…and sisters who are behind it.

When Jessica B. Hill was a kid, she saw a play at the Stratford Festival that she found so inspirational she wrote the word “Stratford” on a piece of paper and put it on her ceiling. Now, she's an award-winning actor and playwright who's appearing in three plays at Stratford this season: “As You Like It,” “Sense and Sensibility” and “Dangerous Liaisons.” Jessica sits down with Tom Power to talk about her life in theatre, her meaty new roles, and her own play about Shakespeare's alleged muse and collaborator, Emilia Bassano.

On this week's show, Steve, Julia, and guest host Sam Adams are off to races with F1:The Movie, the new Brad Pitt racing vehicle featuring lots of racing vehicles. Is the thrill ride more than the sum of its sports movie cliches, high-octane action sequences, and perpetually handsome movie-star? Does the answer even matter? Next, they're joined by Slate senior supervising producer Daisy Rosario to decode the particularly British charms of Taskmaster, the UK panel/game-show now in its 19th season. Finally, what's more fun to pick apart than a best of list? Dana Stevens hops in to dissect the New York Times's 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century interactive feature. In an exclusive Plus bonus episode, the topic is: sex! Specifically, the hosts discuss the status—and seeming decline—of sex in Hollywood movies.  Endorsements: Sam: Drinking the anise-flavored aperitif pastis, the French brand Henri Bardouin is a good one to try. Julia: The delicious Los Angeles restaurant Tomat in the most unlikely of locales: a strip mall by LAX International Airport. Steve: The album Cunningham Bird by Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham and the song Sara by Fleetwood Mac. Dana: The production of Shakespeare's As You Like It available to stream on National Theatre at Home. Our Panelist's Top Ten(ish) Movies of the 21st Century: Dana: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days The Act of Killing Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) Bright Star Children of Men Grizzly Man Parasite Portrait of a Lady on Fire Moonlight There Will Be Blood Julia: I'm Still Here Mean Girls Get Out Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Zombieland Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood Erin Brockovich The Act of Killing Portrait of a Lady on Fire Sam: In the Mood for Love The Act of Killing The Grand Budapest Hotel The Gleaners and I Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind A Serious Man It's Such a Beautiful Day The New World Hedwig and the Angry Inch The Death of Stalin Stephen: Anora Spotlight Toni Erdmann The Lives of Others Paddington 2 Meyerowitz Stories Spirited Away Get Out There Will Be Blood Mulholland Drive Parasite A Separation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's show, Steve, Julia, and guest host Sam Adams are off to races with F1:The Movie, the new Brad Pitt racing vehicle featuring lots of racing vehicles. Is the thrill ride more than the sum of its sports movie cliches, high-octane action sequences, and perpetually handsome movie-star? Does the answer even matter? Next, they're joined by Slate senior supervising producer Daisy Rosario to decode the particularly British charms of Taskmaster, the UK panel/game-show now in its 19th season. Finally, what's more fun to pick apart than a best of list? Dana Stevens hops in to dissect the New York Times's 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century interactive feature. In an exclusive Plus bonus episode, the topic is: sex! Specifically, the hosts discuss the status—and seeming decline—of sex in Hollywood movies.  Endorsements: Sam: Drinking the anise-flavored aperitif pastis, the French brand Henri Bardouin is a good one to try. Julia: The delicious Los Angeles restaurant Tomat in the most unlikely of locales: a strip mall by LAX International Airport. Steve: The album Cunningham Bird by Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham and the song Sara by Fleetwood Mac. Dana: The production of Shakespeare's As You Like It available to stream on National Theatre at Home. Our Panelist's Top Ten(ish) Movies of the 21st Century: Dana: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days The Act of Killing Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) Bright Star Children of Men Grizzly Man Parasite Portrait of a Lady on Fire Moonlight There Will Be Blood Julia: I'm Still Here Mean Girls Get Out Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Zombieland Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood Erin Brockovich The Act of Killing Portrait of a Lady on Fire Sam: In the Mood for Love The Act of Killing The Grand Budapest Hotel The Gleaners and I Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind A Serious Man It's Such a Beautiful Day The New World Hedwig and the Angry Inch The Death of Stalin Stephen: Anora Spotlight Toni Erdmann The Lives of Others Paddington 2 Meyerowitz Stories Spirited Away Get Out There Will Be Blood Mulholland Drive Parasite A Separation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While in a small city, I saw a performance that was fairly ambitious for the location. And they did about as well as a group of amateurs could do. They took the work seriously. They committed to it and gave energetic performances. If they were my students, I'd be proud of them!But watching this performance made me remember what it was like to be a young actor in a small city. To keep reading Quality and the Reach for Greatness ⁠⁠⁠visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.This is Episode 454Song: Donkeyboy's "Ambition"Image is me and Lydia Horan in As You Like It at Four County Players many years ago. To support this podcast:Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review!Rate it wherever you listen or via: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join my mailing list: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Like the blog/show on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support me on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Or on Kofi: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠or PayPal me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartist⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join my Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://emilyrainbowdavis.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow me on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@erainbowd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Me on Mastodon - @erainbowd@podvibes.coMe on Blue sky - @erainbowd.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pinterest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tell a friend!Listen to The Dragoning ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and The Defense ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. You can support them via Ko-fi here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠As ever, I am yours,Emily Rainbow Davis

00:43 Jess and Sarah Weekly Recap06:46 Fandom News08:32 Interview with Gloria Obianyo (Mercy Woodcock on Outlander) Happy Early World Outlander Day from Jess and Sarah! We hope you celebrate with a dram and a fellow Sassenach! Jess and Sarah are back with an extended episode and we can't wait for you to hear this one. We kickoff with our recaps for the week, fandom news and then get to sit down with Gloria Obianyo who you'll know as Mercy Woodcock on Outlander. Gloria joins us to talk about her journey from a High School Musical fan to starring in Outlander. We dive into her theater and screen experiences, upcoming role in As You Like It  directed by Ralph Fiennes and her creative outlets like music and photography. She reflects on the audition process for Outlander, the research she undertook for her role and the complexities of the relationships her character navigates. We hope you enjoy this interview as much as we did! Follow Gloria on IGFollow Gloria's Photography page on IG

Charlie is a native Pittsburgher and a proud graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied Acting. As an actor, select stage credits include the NY Public Theatre's “Shakespeare in the Park” (All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure), the Pearl Theatre Company (Richard II), the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (King Lear, The Three Musketeers, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labour's Lost), The Shakespeare Theatre of DC (Richard II, Henry V, As You Like It, Mrs. Warren's Profession), Middlebury Actor's Workshop (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), The Arts Center of Coastal Carolina (The Unexpected Guest), and Chautauqua Theatre Company (Much Ado About Nothing, Vaidehi, Ah, Wilderness!).  In 2015, Charlie co-founded Esperance Theater Company — a company that produced classical-based work here in NYC. With Esperance, Charlie produced and performed in 12th Night, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Breitwisch Farm. As a teacher, Charlie has been working with MTCA (Musical Theater College Auditions) for over 20 years, where he is now a Director of the company alongside Leo Ash Evens. Charlie has also taught for Texas State University, PACE University, The Performing Arts Project (TPAP), Broadway Dreams, the City University of New York, Carnegie Mellon's Pre-College program, and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. As a Teacher and Director, he is able to do two of his favorite things in life: help students to find their authentic selves as artists, and help them find their best fit in their collegiate journey. Charlie also hosts the “Mapping The College Audition” podcast, where he continues that work, and helps demystify this daunting audition process for listeners around the world. Charlie is also the proud father to a precocious toddler, partner to an amazing Tony-nominated + Grammy-winning Actress, and a humble Broadway Show League Softball MVP. Want to try our Broadway fitness program for free? ⁠⁠⁠www.builtforthestage.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am so excited that today we are joined by a true trailblazer, Rose Ayling-Ellis who I have wanted to have on the podcast for ages and trust me this conversation was worth the wait!  Rose has achieved so many firsts: she is the first deaf person to win ‘Strictly Come Dancing' which even won her a BAFTA, the first deaf person to host live sports coverage on British TV as a presenter for the 2024 Paralympics, and the first deaf actor to be nominated for an Olivier Award for her performance in ‘As You Like It'.  And now after acting for 13 years she has landed her first lead role in ITV's gripping new TV drama, ‘Code of Silence' which follows her character Alison who is plucked from working in the police station canteen and recrutied to lip read for the police on a dangerous case. Plot spoiler: it's INCREDIBLE!  In this episode we talk about the hurdles and prejudice Rose has had to overcome to pursue the career she's dreamed of, the lessons she's learned from resilience and the pressure that comes from being a trailblazer.  We also chat about the mental health problems in the deaf community which we all need to pay more attention to and how we can all make space for oneanother to become a truly inclusive society.  If you love this conversation as much as I do, get in touch with me across socials @joshsmithhosts as I always love hearing from you. I'll see you next week for another episode of ‘Reign'. Love, Josh x P.S The power of conversation is so important and asking for help instead of trying to face stuff alone can be SO empowering. Empowerment is what we're all about on ‘Reign' so I am so pleased this episode is brought to you in partnership with online therapy platform, BetterHelp. With over 5,000 therapists who have a diverse variety of expertise in mental health in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide you with access to the best mental health professional for you. With BetterHelp you can have online therapy on your schedule, wherever you are and build your support system,  If you need support now you can get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp by visiting betterhelp.com/reign. P.P.S. If all this self-love chat has left you wanting to improve your relationships and build new ones check out my self help book, ‘Great Chat: Seven Lessons for Better Conversation, Deeper Connections and Improved Wellbeing' which is out now! The book gives you so much advice on how to have incredible conversations with everyone, and how you can turn everyday conversations into a self development practice so you can improve your relationships and mental health in the process. You can get your copy here https://geni.us/GreatChat and I really hope you love it!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Orlando, from the play As You Like It, talks about church bells knolling, and later in that same play, the Duke talks about how we “have with holy bell been knoll'd to church.” There's a conversation in Act II of Pericles where two fishermen discuss a parish getting swallowed by a whale, and they refer to the parish as “The whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all.” These references demonstrate the important cultural place of bells in England for Shakespeare's lifetime. While Moses is credited with introducing bells to Jewish religion, Italian monks are given credit for introducing bells to Europe, with Saint Bede bringing them specifically to England when he introduced their use in funerals around 700 AD. By the time of William Shakespeare, metallurgy and construction had experienced a metamorphosis, with churches in Europe adopting not only intricate design, but seeking to increase both the size and the sound of their church bells. Here this week to tell us about the history, size, shape, sound, and technical process of building a church bell in Shakespeare's lifetime, is our guest Guthrie Stewart  Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Witty actor and singer Jacob Keith Watson is making waves on the Broadway stages. He appeared as Enoch Snow in the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Carousel. Jacob has also been seen on Broadway in Hello, Dolly!, Brian Crawley's Violet, Craig Lucas' Amélie as Joseph Buquet, Monsieur Reyer in The Phantom of the Opera, Robert Livingston in the acclaimed Encores! revival of 1776, as well as Amos Hart in the National/International tour of Chicago the Musical. Regional and Opera credits include the title role in Shrek with the Sacramento Music Circus and roles in Benny & Joon at the Papermill Playhouse, La bohème, Pagliacci, Pirates of Penzance, Rigoletto, HMS Pinafore, Chicago, Bye Bye Birdie, Seussical, Six Characters in Search of an Author, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Othello, and The Doctor in Spite of Himself. Symphony engagements includes Kurt Weill on Broadway and New York, New York both with Maestro James Holmes and the Kurt Weill foundation and the tenor soloist in Elijah, Messiah, and Carmina Burana. Jacob is an Arkansas native and proud past winner of the prestigious Lotte Lenya Competition, the NATS National Music Theatre Competition and a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 17, 2025 is: uncouth • un-KOOTH • adjective Uncouth describes things, such as language or behavior, that are impolite or socially unacceptable. A person may also be described as uncouth if they are behaving in a rude way. // Stacy realized it would be uncouth to show up to the party without a gift, so she picked up a bottle of wine on the way. See the entry > Examples: “Perhaps people deride those who buy books solely for how they look because it reminds them that despite their primary love of literature, they still appreciate a beautiful cover. It's not of primary importance but liking how something looks in your home matters to some extent, even if it feels uncouth to acknowledge.” — Chiara Dello Joio, LitHub.com, 24 Jan. 2023 Did you know? Old English speakers used the word cūth to describe things that were familiar to them, and uncūth for the strange and mysterious. These words passed through Middle English into modern English with different spellings but the same meanings. While couth eventually dropped out of use, uncouth soldiered on. In Captain Singleton by English novelist Daniel Defoe, for example, the author refers to “a strange noise more uncouth than any they had ever heard,” while Shakespeare wrote of an “uncouth forest” in As You Like It. This “unfamiliar” sense of uncouth, however, joined couth in becoming, well, unfamiliar to most English users, giving way to the now-common meanings, “rude” and “lacking polish or grace.” The adjective couth in use today, meaning “sophisticated” or “polished,” arose at the turn of the 20th century, not from the earlier couth, but as a back-formation of uncouth, joining the ranks of other “uncommon opposites” such as kempt and gruntled.

Aaron Davis, the visionary behind Acid Camp, tells the tale of an inspiring journey that spans from the streets of Brooklyn to the sunny vibes of Los Angeles. His adventure began in Brooklyn in 2008, where he landed on the scene by producing events for groups like Discovery and the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival. In 2012, he brought his love of promoting events to LA, co-founding an all-vinyl radio show that serendipitously led to the creation of Acid Camp during a trip to Joshua Tree. In a short amount of time, Acid Camp quickly became a beloved staple of the underground scene, due to the collective energy of passionate friends and a community-driven spirit, as well as iconic merch and branding that added to the underground allure and helped build a dedicated following. Despite the challenges of organizing underground events, Davis's unwavering passion for hosting parties and sharing music has always seen him through, and his dedication to music curation and collaboration with talented artists and engineers has been key to crafting the unique and joyful vibe of Acid Camp events. Ever one to keep it real, Davis sees himself as a raver with a passion for the music rather than a veteran DJ and promoter, and he continues to relish the journey of creating unforgettable experiences with friends and music lovers every event. Here he shares his story with us ahead of his latest mix for As You Like It, let's press play and dive in.

If you're enjoying the Hardcore Literature Show, there are two ways you can show your support and ensure it continues: 1. Please leave a quick review on iTunes. 2. Join in the fun over at the Hardcore Literature Book Club: patreon.com/hardcoreliterature Thank you so much. Happy listening and reading! - Benjamin  

In As You Like It, Orlando says “Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.” that's one of a dozen references to ciphers in Shakespeare's plays, which reflects the place of ciphers as a common way to keep secrets, particularly among the elite, for Shakespeare's lifetime. One of the most famous ciphers for Shakespeare's lifetime was written between 1578 and 1584, while Shakespeare was just getting his career started in London as a playwright, when they were written by none other than Mary, Queen of Scots. For 19 years prior to her execution, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in England, and during that time, she wrote extensively, including letters in code. It was known that between 1578 and 1584, just 3 years before her death, Mary wrote a series of letters in code to the French ambassador, but those letters were considered to have been lost. Surprisingly, the letters survived, but because they consist of unreadable encoded text, no one knew what they were about, and they were stored away in unrelated collections in the National Library of France, where they went unexplored, until 400 years later. In 2023, an international team of codebreakers happened to stumble upon the documents when they were looking for historical ciphers in order to crack them. They not only found Mary's lost letters, but managed to decode them, and present the contents to the world for the first time in almost half a millennia. Lead author and Israeli computer scientist, George Lasry, is here today to tell us about the team's efforts, the decoding process, what Mary wrote, and why it was so important for the letters to be in cipher in the first place.   Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“She speaks her mind.” Korean-American actor and lead singer of the rock group Kiss the Tiger, Meghan Kreidler opens up about her experiences playing Rosalind in “As You Like It”, being a woman in the world of rock 'n' roll, her tumultuous relationship with Shakespeare and her love of lyricism.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers As Broadway Is My Beat was taking to the air on February 3rd, 1950, snow was on the ground. Three inches had fallen on the 1st. That Friday, nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs was arrested by agents of Scotland Yard. He was charged with providing American atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. The next day, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Leslie R. Groves testified before a joint congressional committee that, as a result of the secrets Fuchs gave the U.S.S.R., the Soviets had begun development of both atomic and hydrogen bombs. At the Cort Theatre In New York, Katharine Hepburn was starring in a production of Shakespeare's comedy, As You Like It. Located at 138 West 48th Street, The Cort was renamed the James Earl Jones theatre in 2022. Meanwhile The New York Daily News cover showed Ingrid Bergman, who'd just given birth to her son Robin Rossellini. The child was born out of wedlock. She filed for divorce from husband Dr. Peter Lindstrom, and shortly thereafter Stromboli premiered in American theaters. It was accompanied by a great deal of controversy from the affair between Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini. The pair would marry on May 24th, 1950. The biggest international news was coming out of England where a general election was to be held on January 23rd. With that in mind, Elmo Roper took to the air on CBS' The People Speak with more information.

“What does it mean to be a free spirit?” Director Kim Martin Cotten and Radio Play Writer Catherine Eaton discuss the vision and meaning behind the Play On Podcast series adaptation of “As You Like It”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the first couple of years of the 1600s, several new Shakespeare plays appeared. ‘Much Ado About Nothing' and ‘As You Like It' were recorded in the Stationer's Register, and a third play called ‘The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of … Continue reading →