Paul Edmondson

Drawing On Shakespeare

Drawing on Shakespeare is a 16-episode webseries hosted by Austin Tichenor and the ridiculously talented Gary Andrews, where we talk about Shakespeare with witty, wonderful, and wise people while Gary draws what we’re talking about. As a possible second season/series gets closer, Gary and Austin remember how Drawing on Shakespeare began, discuss how different actors bring new meaning to a character; how every conversation leads to new insights about a play; how Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be like Keith Richards; and how audience figures are staggering into the several. (Length 17:40)

Podcast: Download ()

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More

By austin, ago

Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Unabridged)

Paul Edmondson is the Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-Upon-Avon Poetry Festival for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and, together with Professor Sir Stanley Wells, has just published All the Sonnets of Shakespeare, which collects Shakespeare’s 154 standalone sonnets along with most of the other sonnets Shakespeare included in his plays, and arranges them all for the very first time in the order in which they were probably written. Paul discusses how he and Sir Stanley had a desire to counter the damaging (and reductive) narrative of a so-called Fair Youth and Dark Lady, and includes revelations of a lifetime of writing; recitations by request; unexpected wisdom from a relatively young poet; recognizing the difficulty of reading the sonnets; schoolboy exercises; how sonnets 50 and 51 suggest that Shakespeare wrote them while on horseback; and the possibility (probably the certainty) of leaving a lasting impact on how we understand Shakespeare’s biography. (Length 28:48)

Podcast: Download (33.3MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More

By austin, ago