Well, friends, this episode marks the last for the pod. We give you a short list of things we love about Shakespeare and about making this podcast together, we play a few games, and we say our goodbyes. With lots of bird-walking and rabbit holes along the way because when we promise Vintage Whamlet, we deliver. Thank you for making the last 6 years so fantastic. Whamlet OUT!

This week, for our penultimate episode, we decided to get some sh*t off our chests and make a list of 10 things we hate about Shakespeare. That’s it. No other segments. Oh and we list our bottom 5 plays in the canon, too. But don’t worry, as the saying goes, hatred isn’t the opposite of love, it’s indifference. We bitch because we love.

For our final 101 episode, we take you back to the Spanish Golden Age with House of Desires and its proto-Mexican, female playwright Sor Juana (a nun!). We tell you a little about this Metal AF nun in Meet the Contemporary, and we summarize the play and read a very silly cross-dressing scene from the second act for A Taste of Text. We compare translations of the scene a little bit, and then gossip a lot about yet another Oxfraudian, anti-Stratfordian overture made by the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (aka SAC - which, like, LOL at your dumb acronym, bros). Listener beware: if the authorship “debate” fills you with white-hot rage, you may just want to skip the last 15 minutes of the episode. That aside, someone please produce House of Desires so we can go see it. We think it’s a delight and we hope you agree.

CW: Today’s episode involves one of our classic tangents, this time into the topic of incest and incest porn. That said, today’s episode is a 101 all about dynamic playwriting duo Beaumont and Fletcher’s “tragicomedy” A King and No King. We summarize this bonkers play for you - spoilers: it’s only a fake incest plot to lure you in - and ready a portion of act 3 for a Taste of Text. We talk a little about why incest tropes are so popular in modern media, particularly in pornography but also in early modern drama, we gossip a little about the still-unraveling Cleveland Playhouse debacle, and call it a day. Also, there’s a minor character in the play whose name sounds like BI-CURIOUS, so start the fan fictions engines NOW.

It only took us 4 years, but we have finally circled back to Love’s Labour’s Lost for a deep dive into what some fussy Victorians - Hazlitt and Tennyson - had to say about the play, plus a little bit about the moral implications of the ladies’ “homework” for the boys at the play’s conclusion. There also may or may not be some extensive bird walking into a little-known whodunit called The Moonstone #sorrynotsorry. We gossip a little and also deliver A Big Announcement About the Podcast.

Our winter break is officially over and we hope you did your homework because Dr. Yasmine Hachimi joins us to talk about Henry VIII (the man, and sometimes Shakespeare’s play) and his most infamous wife, Anne Boleyn. In this longer-than-usual conversation we focus on the Netflix miniseries Blood, Sex, and Royalty, but also several other TV series and books that feature Anne and other Tudor queens. We examine why Anne in particular is the subject of this type of historical hyper-focus (spoiler alert: it mostly boils down to sexism…) and why we feel the need to sexualize historical queens at all. Yasmine also graces us with a fantastic reading list and tons of other recommendations if you’re interested in learning more. Thanks for joining us, Yasmine!

This week we’re talking about The City Nightcap by Robert Davenport, a bewildering play by an even more bewildering (read: mysterious) author. We try to help you Meet the Contemporary, but Bobby Davs left us very little to go on; our Taste of Text is sure to amuse (and confuse) you; we talk a LOT about all the kicking happening in this play, as well as why it - among other things - is so problematic (read: sexist AF). If you have the chance to see this play, awesome, but if you don’t you’re not really missing much aside from a unique barnyard-themed masque and the most hilarious not-a-bed-trick bed trick of all time. Have a great holiday season and we’ll see you in January!

This week we return to the classic romantic comedy, Twelfth Night, to talk about the recent production at the American Shakespeare Center (directed by the amazing Jenny Bennett) and how it's a great example of how queering your casting and production concept can unlock new takes on a well-known, popular play. We also gossip about Jess's experience at the recent Early Modern Trans Conference, as well as some...um...highly questionable choices made by a certain theatre company for their ill-fated production of Romeo & Juliet. Bottom line, when in doubt: queer it up and say NO to Nazis.

Well, we hope you like feminist rants, because that’s what most of this episode devolved into. In this 201 we go off on Troilus and the rest of the men of Troilus and Cressida to interrogate why the Greeks and Trojans hinged all of their masculinity and self worth on Helen and Cressida’s status as chaste virgins. We also take a brief birdwalk to examine the folio text of this play to check an odd prose-to-verse switch in act 3 scene 2. Finally, we dust the cobwebs off of a favorite game, Line Roulette, and find out why a line about Achilles’ Mermidons cries encapsulates this entire play full of whiny boys.

It’s our first ever 101 for a Spanish Golden Age play! Today we’re talking about Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna and all the wild, wonderful customs and traditions of the early modern Spanish theatre. Our Meet the Playwright segment takes you through de Vega’s impressive (and horny) biography; Jess delights with her multitude of voices in A Taste of Text; we take you through the real event that this play is based on - true crime, again, huzzah! - and Aubrey compares the structure and culture of Spanish playhouses to the English ones we usually talk about, plus the added layer of textual instability that comes with second-language translation. The differences may surprise you! Not only that, but this play gives you the perfect excuse for your mistakes and/or crimes: just say “Fuenteovejuna did it!”

Sooooooo William Rowley’s The Birth of Merlin actually has very little to do with Merlin or any other part of the Arthurian legend, and it’s more of a history play than its title would suggest. We re-introduce you to playwright William Rowley, who apparently loved to write himself into all of his plays as a “fat clown;” we give you A Taste of Text from Act IV involving a little antic spirit; we talk about how this play doesn’t fit neatly into any particular genre because it is doing The Literal Most at all times, but for all that it’s not even that great; then we gossip a bit and that’s that. Don’t believe anyone that tells you this play was written by Shakespeare, and definitely don’t believe them if they say it’s their favorite play.

Season 6 begins with a ROAR(ing Girl) courtesy of Thomases Dekker and Middleton. The famous city comedy features real-life legend Mary Frith, aka Moll Cutpurse, but not with nearly the stage time such a character deserves; we give you a brief introduction to the lesser-known Thomas of this collab team, Dekker, and also a Taste of Text where Moll’s voice really shines. Jess gives you a refresher on the city comedy genre, as well as the real life Moll and we deliver a little personal gossip. We hope you enjoy our roaring return. It’s good to be back!

Why As You Like It now? We cover many possible answers to this question, but also take some long, healthy bird walks into other topics both relevant and irrelevant as we make our way through those thoughts. We also dive deep into the New Oxford edition’s notes on AYLI (because it gets real sexist real quick) and attempt to unravel the printing mystery of why there is no quarto edition of this play. We gossip a little bit about the ethics of book reviews in Shakespeare journals and how Jon Snow…err…Kit Harrington is playing Henry V right now, once again disproving Aubrey’s claim that “no one’s doing the Henrys right now.” This episode is our season 5 finale; watch out for extras released during our hiatus, but otherwise we will see you for season 6 this fall. Go find your Green World!

Today’s episode tackles one issue and one issue only, and that is to refute the assertion that The Taming of the Shrew is about “romance” (whatever the F that means). We examine a variation in the text between First Folio printing and several modern editions that seem to either soften or double down on Petruchio’s “domination” of Katherine, and eventually come to the conclusion that no matter which way you slice it, the entire charade is unnecessary. We unpack the term “romantic” and why our mothers’ opinions on romantic love might not have aged well, as well as quite possibly the only interpretation of Shrew that could make its protagonists journey actually romantic. No spoilers. #consentissexy

Today we put on our teacher hats and model the kind of thinking we ask our students to do. After a four-year hiatus, we return to Thomas Kyd’s ur-revenge tragedy that started them all, The Spanish Tragedy, to discuss how the F*ck we’re supposed to unpack it for 21st century learners. Jess starts with examining the difference between revenge and justice which, though nebulous, proved an easier topic to broach with her students than the concept of dumb shows and masques. Um…they don’t talk? There are masks and sometimes dancing? (There’s more to it than that, but you’ll need to listen to catch it all!)

Sometimes when you think you have nothing to say about a play, it turns out you still have a sh*t-ton to say. Today’s 301 episode revisits The Tempest, and we ask the question - what is its genre, really, and also why this play now? Jess posits that maybe The Tempest would feel a little more cathartic at the end if it were staged more like a revenge tragedy at the beginning; Aubrey speculates a bit about why so many regional theaters have added this title to their 2022 lineup. Oh, and we take not one but TWO birdwalks down Marie de France lane because Jess just can’t shut up about this medieval author. Lesbian weasels! Fun times!

SURPRISE! You thought you were getting a Love’s Labour’s episode but we had a last minute change of plans. Instead, we opted for something new, a way to get a bunch of plays into a 201-ish discussion without dedicating an episode to each individual one (because, tbh, we’re down to the dregs - mostly plays we just don’t wanna talk about anymore). So we invented 201 Roulette! Jess and Aubrey take turns drawing the names of plays out of a hat and extemporizing about those plays however they like. No spoilers, but you’ll definitely get a dose of what we love and hate, as well as who we would cast in dream productions of the titles we draw. Tell us what you think - if you like this format, we might do it again!

This episode is a Hurly Burly first, both because we’re rolling 201 content for three plays - 1 & 2 Henry IV and Henry V - all into one episode, but also because we have a MAJOR SCOOP in ShakesBubble Gossip that you get to hear all about here first! The endlessly charming Brandon Carter joins us to talk about tackling the arc of the first Henriad as Prince Hal/King Henry, being the first (and maybe only?) African American to play the role in a series of connected productions, and spill the hot hot tea about what else is happening in his career. You’ll have to listen to the end to catch it, but he’s such a delight that you won’t mind one bit.

In our second ever 202 episode (reserved for a Shakespeare adaptation or adjacent work), we take you through the suspenseful and sometimes bemusing and frustrating plot of Jennifer Lee Carrell’s mystery thriller Interred With Their Bones. We give you a plot and character synopsis as well as all the Shakespearean easter eggs you can handle, with just a sprinkle of “authorship question” (because the book forced us to) and some early modern true crime to boot. Looking for a fun read for your holiday break? Read this book (and listen to our episode before you do)!

It’s not enough to talk to one Bottom about being Nick Bottom, we needed at least 2: utter delights and all-around good humans (and actors) Topher Embry and Gregory Jon Phelps join us to talk about what they love (and hate) about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, playing Bottom and other characters, and so much more. It’s a shenanigan roller coaster for this 301-level episode, so buckle up!