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We love playing the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in the summer because we get to bring our kids. This week we find out what’s fun to do in DC if you’re a kid, and discover zip line safety tips, the semi-permanence of temporary exhibits, gateway card games, a special appearance by Holly Morris from Fox Morning News, and the difference between a grownup’s and a child’s definition of ‘fun’. (MP3. Length 18:31)
Podcast: Download (17.0MB)
Michelle Ephraim – a Professor of English and (with Caroline Bicks), the cohost of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast and the co-author of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas – joins us this week to talk about her frank and funny new book, Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare. Michelle reveals she discovered Shakespeare surprisingly late; how “fun” is a a perfectly fine description of her sometimes fraught memoir; the shared curse of meeting hero Stephens; how Shakespeare became a source of both pain and solace in the wake of a parent’s death; how her relatively cushy job became surprisingly hazardous; and, finally, how Shakespeare – a dead European white man – became a very relatable force for inclusion. (Length 19:31)
Richard Schoch discusses Shakespeare’s House: A Window Onto His Life and Legacy, his wonderful new history of not only the building in Stratford-upon-Avon that William Shakespeare was born in, but how that building survived and became ground zero in the Shakespeare tourism industry. Schoch reveals how he discovered the dual focus of his book; how it took almost 200 years for people to realize the treasure that still stood in their midst; the shenanigans played by people who first depicted Shakespeare’s birthplace; the important distinctions between restoring a house and remaking it; the trick of hitting that sweet spot between writing an academic history and a popular one; and how the most important person in Shakespeare’s birthplace is not Shakespeare but the visitor. (Length 18:52)
Joel H. Morris discusses his debut novel All Our Yesterdays – no, not the penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Original Series – which tells the compellingly plausible story of the events that lead up to William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Morris reveals his multiple inspirations, both literary and personal; how investigations into the actual historical couple Shakespeare based his play on informed his novel; the ways in which writing is a process of discovery; how he balanced the political and the personal, the natural and supernatural; how he summoned the courage to explore one of literature's most famous characters; and the wonderful inability to let go of characters that won’t let you go. (Length 22:56)
7 Comments
Patricia · July 13, 2011 at 10:27 am
Thanks for a great show and for signing my book! I missed my Kodak moment though. 🙁 How long do you guys stay after each performance?
Also, do you know why you guys weren’t on the cover of the Playbill?
austin · July 13, 2011 at 6:38 am
We don’t use any language you can’t hear on network television (not a RINGING endorsement, I know), but most innuendo will fly over kids’ heads. We’ve had lots of kids come to show but you know your own kids best. Our standard answer is our shows are rated PG-13 – Pretty Good If You’re Thirteen.
RITA · July 13, 2011 at 6:27 am
Want to take family to 7/19 performance “Sports, etc.” . Don’t like bad (foul) language, how is this show? Thanx
Emily · July 12, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Have you checked out the Crime & Punishment Museum?
Also, I was surprised I didn’t hear Rippy or Dominic on the podcast, considering they’re RSC kids too, at least character-wise… 🙂
austin · July 7, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Thanks for the heads-up, Pat! We fixed it and it’s on iTunes now.
Pat · July 7, 2011 at 2:09 pm
The current podcast is not showing on ITunes.
Jay Roberts · July 6, 2011 at 4:49 am
Great show last night guys (except for the drunk lady), my gut is still hurting.
Sports will never be the same!
(Reed – Thanks for the brief conversation – Love your Mays jersey – Go Giants!!)