Everyday Shakespeare

Hosts Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim are Shakespeare professors and close friends who love to bond over the ways Shakespeare’s plays help them through their everyday dramas.

In each episode, they go back to Shakespeare’s day to offer funny, fresh insights into a pressing modern problem. They’ll explore popular Renaissance writings – from parenting books to cosmetics manuals – and, of course, plays – and talk about their uncanny connections to our everyday struggles. Whether you’re dealing with an aging libido, a pandemic, or a dysfunctional family gathering, you’ll feel a little bit better when Bard meets life.

Caroline is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, and Michelle is Professor of English at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They've shared their unique brand of Bard-meets-life humor everywhere from the New York Times and the Moth Radio Hour to McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and are the co-authors of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas.

Who says an English major is useless?

A sample selection of episodes is below. For the full podcast library, click here.

It’s June, and the official public health emergency is over. That means it’s time to turn up the dial on entertaining! In this episode, we comb Shakespeare’s plays in search of advice on how to deal with some timeless party-throwing dilemmas. We’ll take a close look at his most unsung beleaguered hostesses and talk about everything from disastrous dinner parties to guests who can’t control their booze or their uninvited plus-ones. We wrote the book on this topic. Literally: Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails For Your Everyday Dramas.

Party Like It’s 1599!

Shakespeare loved to give people a good laugh and had an arsenal of methods to do so. And his humor isn't confined to the plays labeled "comedies"; even the great tragedies deliver moments of hilarity. Actor and comedian Rachel Dratch joins us here to talk about the business of being funny and to help us see how Shakespeare's witty comebacks and jig-dancing clowns connect to the comedy world today.

Clowning Around with Rachel Dratch

In this episode, we talk to Dr. John "Ray" Proctor, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Tulane University. Dr. Proctor is an expert on the intersection of race, casting, and the peculiarities and specifics of Identity-Conscious casting practices, especially in Shakespeare. He shares his experiences with us as a director, actor, teacher and researcher to help us take a deep dive into representations of blackness and whiteness on stage—then and now.

Staging Race

Sex can be fun and exciting, but it also raises all kinds of issues about power, control, and freedom. In this episode, we’ll be looking at how people in Shakespeare’s day were understanding sexual anatomy, pleasure, and reproduction, and discuss how the debates and anxieties that surfaced back then connect to some of our present-day divisions. We’ll be using doctor-approved language—from multiple centuries—but we’ll also be talking about sexual pleasure and consent, and referencing scenarios that some may find difficult to hear. Listener discretion advised.

Let’s Talk About Sex

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Black Fatherhood Podcast, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Teachers, Toddlers and Tissues, University of Wisconsin-Madison