Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Director Peter Sellars once staged "Antony and Cleopatra" in a Harvard dormitory swimming pool. His King Lear owned a Lincoln Continental. His work is complex. But what confounds some audience members has also won him ardent fans. One of them is Ayanna Thompson, a scholar of Shakespeare and performance studies who is now director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University. Thompson’s new book, the latest in Bloomsbury’s "Shakespeare in the Theatre" series, explores Sellars’s influences and tracks the predominant theme of his work: a laser-like focus on race in America. We talked with Thompson and Sellars himself about what can be gained from striving to understand the impenetrable. Thompson and Sellars are interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast series. Published October 2, 2018. ©Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I Understand Thee Well,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associa