Shakespeare Theatre Company Launches SHAKESPEARE HOUR LIVE!

Join STC and like-minded fans of the Bard for Shakespeare Hour LIVE!, an ongoing tour through every corner of the Shakespeare universe. Artistic Director Simon Godwin and Resident Dramaturg Drew Lichtenberg gather online with special guests each week to discuss a new topic and allow audiences the opportunity to ask questions live.

These live conversations take place online and require you to have access to the Internet.

To ensure your access to Shakespeare Hour LIVE! simply complete your reservation online or through the box office. You will receive an email about one hour before the show which will include a streaming link granting you access to that evening's show. It's that simple!

Week 16, September 9: Shakespeare & The Law

In this special partnership with STC's Bard Association, join some of the sharpest legal minds in Washington (hopefully including some recent stars of STC's ever-popular Mock Trial) as they discuss Shakespeare's own theatrical connection to the Inns of Court and the outlines of his legal imagination.

Guests: Kate Burton (multiple Tony and Emmy Award nominee; Broadway: Present Laughter, Hedda Gabler; Grey's Anatomy, Scandal); Jessie K. Liu (Former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia); and Abbe Lowell (Winston & Strawn, LLP; Chair, STC Bard Association)

Week 17, September 16: Shakespeare & Film

From the landmark films of Akira Kurosawa (Throne of Blood, Ran), Orson Welles (Othello, Chimes at Midnight), and Sir Laurence Olivier (Hamlet, Henry V) to more recent adaptations by Kenneth Branagh (Much Ado, As You Like It, Henry V), Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho), and Julie Taymor (Titus, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream), Shakespeare's plays have proven to be a fertile source of cinematic imaginings. Join Julie Taymor and more guests for an in-depth discussion of the process of translating Shakespeare's language to the most visual of mediums.

Guests: Dr. Peter Holland (McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies, University of Notre Dame; former Director of the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon) and Julie Taymor (Tony Award-winning director, The Lion King; Will Award honoree)

Week 18, September 23: Shakespeare's Heroines

Continuing our examination of Shakespeare's relationship to humor begun with our recent episode on Shakespeare & Clowns, we will examine the female protagonists in his plays, and the respective importance of verbal wit, theatrical imagination, and humane intelligence to be found in his work.

Guests: Helen Hunt (Oscar and Emmy Award winner, As Good As It Gets, Mad About You, Lincoln Center's Twelfth Night) and Madeline Sayet (Where We Belong, National Directing Fellow, Forbes 30 Under 30 in Hollywood & Entertainment)

Week 19, September 30: Richard II

In anticipation of the upcoming November election, sure to be one of the most controversial and politically charged of many Americans' lifetimes, the Shakespeare Hour LIVE! team tackles the most controversial and politically charged of Shakespeare's plays during his lifetime. Staged by the Earl of Essex as part of an attempted revolutionary coup, the controversial deposition scene was published only in its full form after Shakespeare's death. Richard II is his ultimate study of deposition and succession, of the soft-seeming mechanisms through which the state's hard and violent powers have often changed hands.

Guests: TBA