Mini: Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet with Katherine Steele Brokaw and Elizabeth Freestone

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In this mini episode, we sit down with Katherine Steele Brokaw and Elizabeth Freestone, authors of Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet, to talk about their work producing ecological Shakespeare. We discuss what it means to approach Shakespeare's plays through an ecological lens, how that thinking shapes the choices theatremakers make in rehearsal and production, and what inspired them to write a book on the subject. We also explore how Shakespeare's plays can help us engage with the environmental challenges of our own moment.

About Katherine Steele Brokaw

Katherine Steele Brokaw is a Professor of English at University of Texas at Austin and the Director of Shakespeare at Winedale at UT. Her work focuses primarily on the production and study of Shakespearean performance, with a special interest in how modern productions can be used to highlight ecological issues. She is the author of Staging Harmony: Music and Religious Change in Late Medieval and Early English Drama and Shakespeare and Community Performance and she is co-author, with Elizabeth Freestone, of Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet. She was the co-founding artistic director of Shakespeare in Yosemite, where she adapted and directed eight productions.

About Elizabeth Freestone

Elizabeth Freestone is a British theatre director. She is an Associate Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company for whom she has directed The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors, The Rape of Lucrece, The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, Crooked Dances and Here Lies Mary Spindler. Her next show for the RSC will be Coriolanus in Spring 2027. She has also directed Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing for Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, Queen Margaret at the Royal Exchange in Manchester and Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare's Globe. She has a PhD from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford upon Avon and is the co-author (with Katie Brokaw) of Performing Shakespeare on an Endangered Planet and the co-author (with Jeanie O'Hare) of 100 Plays To Save The World.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

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