Poets & Writers Theater

Travel back four hundred years for this Victoria and Albert Museum video as Elizabeth James, senior librarian at the National Art Library in London, presents the secrets behind the First Folio of Shakespeare, which was published in 1623 and includes his iconic plays Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and The Tempest.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Watch the trailer for The Tragedy of Macbeth, a film based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare, written and directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, and Corey Hawkins.

“O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, / By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!” In this short film for the Sonnet Project, Gabrielle Beans performs Shakespeare’s Sonnet 54 at Sakura Park in Morningside Heights in New York City.

The King is a film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s history plays known as the Henriad: Richard II, Henry IV Parts I and II, and Henry V. Directed by David Michôd, the film stars Ben Mendelsohn as King Henry IV, Timothée Chalamet as King Henry V, and Joel Edgerton as Falstaff. Michôd and Edgerton cowrote the screenplay.

All Is True is a biopic depicting the last three years of William Shakespeare’s life, after the original Globe Theatre in London burned down during a performance of Henry VIII in 1613 and he returned to Stratford-upon-Avon. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, the film stars Branagh as Shakespeare, Judi Dench as his wife Anne Hathaway, and Ian McKellen as the Earl of Southampton.

William Shakespeare’s tragic play King Lear has been adapted into a made-for-television film set in a highly militarized version of present-day London. Directed by Richard Eyre, the film stars Anthony Hopkins as the titular character, and Florence Pugh, Emma Thompson, and Emily Watson as his three daughters.

Will is a television drama about the imagined life of William Shakespeare in his early twenties in London as he struggles to get his plays onto the stage. Created by Craig Pearce, the series stars Laurie Davidson as Shakespeare and Jamie Campbell Bower as his rival Christopher Marlowe.

“Every time someone goes to see a Shakespeare play in Russia or in Italy or in Brazil...what they’re actually getting is a version of Shakespeare that some translator has interpreted.” In this video, translator Daniel Hahn talks about the universal elements of Shakespeare’s plays. Hahn is donating part of his award money from the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award, which he won with author José Eduardo Agualusa, to help establish a new prize for debut literary translation in the U.K.

In this short film for the Sonnet Project, Michelle Beck performs Shakespeare's Sonnet 8 at Central Park's Naumburg Bandshell in New York City. The Sonnet Project, which aims to film all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets, is featured in News and Trends in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“If you look at the Greek myths, they’re always about unhappy families; Aristotle told us that politics starts in the family—I think that’s true.” Deborah Levy, whose most recent novel, Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton, 2016), is shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, talks about the elements of family in Hamlet that have always haunted her. This video is part of the Hay Festival: Talking About Shakespeare video series celebrating William Shakespeare’s four hundredth anniversary.

"Simply put, we are creatures of rhythm and repetition.... Pattern can be pleasure." In this TED-Ed lesson by David Silverstein, animated by Avi Ofer, the pleasure we experience in the repetition of language within poetry, and even in Eminem songs, is deciphered. 

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jane Smiley explains why The Winter’s Tale is her favorite play by William Shakespeare. To commemorate the four hundred year anniversary of his death in April 2016, Folger Shakespeare Library has collected videos of people sharing their favorite Shakespeare stories.

From William Shakespeare to Dr. Seuss, this episode of Otherwords, a PBS Storied web series hosted by sociolinguist Dr. Erica Brozovsky, digs deep into verbal innovations and the history of words created by writers.

Ophelia is a retelling of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet from the perspective of the Prince of Denmark’s love interest. Directed by Claire McCarthy, the feature film stars Daisy Ridley in the title role, Tom Felton as Laertes, George MacKay as Hamlet, Clive Owen as Claudius, and Naomi Watts as Gertrude.

In this video produced by the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering, professors and students weigh in on whether artificial intelligence has the capacity to write poetry. David St. John, author of The Last Troubadour: New and Selected Poems (Ecco, 2017), and Shakespeare scholar Bruce Smith speak on behalf of human poets.

Nicole Sealey reads William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 6 and her poem “Even the Gods” from her debut collection, Ordinary Beast (Ecco, 2017), for the P.O.P series, which was was shot and edited by Rachel Eliza Griffiths in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Sealey discusses poetry and craft with Dawn Lundy Martin in “Vagrant & Vulnerable” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.” In this scene from This Is Macbeth, Joan Malkin, Carrie Paff, and Atosa Babaoff deliver their rendition of the three witches in Act One, Scene One of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

In this short film starring Brian Cheng, Shakespeare's Sonnet 82 is played out at the Strand Book Store in New York City as part of the Sonnet Project.

Educators David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor share the power and reasoning behind William Shakespeare's usage of iambic pentameter in this TED-Ed short film animated by Brad Purnell.

"That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan." Primarily an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight traces the relationship between beloved characters Falstaff and Prince Hal. A new, expert restoration is being reintroduced in theaters across the country.