The words, Shakespeare's words, those remain the same. But what you do with them, what a director can do to make them mean this or mean that, that is practically infinite.

From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.

If you've gone to more than one production of a Shakespeare play,

you're aware that no two theatre directors treats his work the same way.

When it comes to setting, when it comes to costumes, when it comes to casting,

directors shape Shakespeare to make his work exactly what they want it to be.

In fact, there is a joke in the theater that that's one of the reasons why directors love to do Shakespeare.

You can do whatever you want with him and not worry about him sending you a nasty gram or calling you out on Twitter.

It's with this sense of infinite possibility in mind that we invited in to theater directors for a conversation about how they approach the works of Shakespeare.

Laura Gordon is a Milwaukee-based freelance theater director who's done a lot of Shakespeare work in the West.

She directed Shakespeare at Utah State University, at Santa Cruz Shakespeare, and also the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival.

Vivian Benish is the artistic director of Playmakers' Rep at the University of North Carolina

in Chapel Hill. She's directed Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey,

at Chautauqua, at Juilliard, and last year here at the Folger, where she did a wonderful

production of Love's Labor's Lost. While there are only two of the hundreds of directors

who work in Shakespeare, we think you'll agree that their ideas offer a window into the

special care directors take when they're given the opportunity to work in this

special realm. A note before we start, Laura recorded herself at home in Milwaukee. Viv

recorded herself at her mother's apartment in Manhattan. We call our podcast a bill of properties

such as our play wants. Viv and Laura are interviewed by

Barbara Boveh. Let's start with the beginning of the whole process. And I'm curious,

and I'm going to ask each of you in turn, who gets to decide that you'll be directing a Shakespeare

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