Episode 531. Thinking Shakespeare’s Text

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“Scott Parkinson is one of the truly great American interpreters of Shakespeare, and certainly the only one we know personally who will talk to us. While chatting about his recent Writers Theatre production of Julius Caesar (which he adapted, co-directed, and appeared in as Cassius), Scott discussed the method he uses to make the text sound as natural as breathing. Featuring more options for actors, so-called rules of versifying, some inside-Chicago-theatre-baseball, how everything you need is in the text but oh right an actor also needs to bring some intense emotional commitment, revelations about Peter Sarsgaard’s Hamlet and Barry Edelstein’s Thinking Shakespeare, the necessity and glory of filling the space, and suggestions for a post-Caesar palate cleanser. (Length 30:45)

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