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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Inside Hamlet’s Head with Jeremy McCarter

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7837 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What if, instead of just watching Hamlet, you could step inside the prince’s mind? A revelatory new audio production reimagines Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy as a first-person experience told through Hamlet’s POV. We only hear the scenes in which he appears—every soliloquy becomes an inner monologue, every whisper a voice in our ears. With stunning binaural sound design by Tony Award–winner Mikhail Fiksel and an intimate, close-mic performance by Daniel Kyri (“Chicago Fire”) as the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet is transformed into a deeply personal journey through grief, paranoia, memory, and resolve. The six-episode podcast of Hamlet is produced by Make-Believe Association, an audio storytelling group based in Chicago. The production, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, includes performances by John Douglas Thompson as Claudius (and the Ghost), Sharon Washington as Gertrude, and Jacob Ming-Trent as Polonius. In this episode, director Jeremy McCarter shares how technology unlocked new layers of intimacy and urgency in Shakespeare’s play—and why, more than 400 years later, Hamlet’s questions still resonate. >>>Listen to Hamlet at hamlet.fm or wherever you listen to podcasts. Headphones heighten the experience! From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 29, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Jeremy McCarter founded Make-Believe Association in 2017 after five years on the artistic staff of the Public Theater in New York. For the company, he adapted The Lost Books of the Odyssey; co-wrote City on Fire: Chicago Race Riot 1919 (with Natalie Moore); co-created and co-wrote the acclaimed epic Lake Song (Tribeca Festival Audio Premiere, winner of three Signal Awards), and adapted and directed the audacious new take on Hamlet. His books include Young Radicals; Hamilton: The Revolution (with Lin-Manuel Miranda); and Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen (with Jon M. Chu). He has written about culture and politics for New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is the literary executor of the novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder.

Transcript

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0:00.0

From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Farah Kareem Cooper,

0:09.5

the Folger director. What's the most intimate production of a Shakespeare play you've ever seen?

0:17.8

Maybe you were sitting in a black box theater, or in front row seats at a production

0:23.3

in the round, or maybe a film version that made you feel like you were in the room with the

0:28.9

characters. Well, a new audio-only production of Hamlet attempts to put you directly into

0:35.6

Hamlet's shoes, or maybe his ears.

0:40.1

This Hamlet stars Daniel Kyrie in the title role, with John Douglas Thompson as Claudius and Sharon

0:47.0

Washington as Gertrude. Jeremy McCarter directed. What sets this production apart is the way it tells the story entirely through Hamlet's point of view. That means we don't hear any scenes that Hamlet doesn't witness. And thanks to sound design by Mikhail Fixel, what we do hear sounds like it's coming directly from inside Hamlet's head.

1:14.3

Hamlet is a production of Make Believe Association, an audio drama studio based in Chicago.

1:21.5

They've released it as a six-episode podcast, and it's free to listen to at hamlet.fm.

1:28.4

We'll open with a clip from the first moments of the production.

1:32.7

David Diggs performs the prologue, followed by Daniel Kyrie as Hamlet.

1:38.6

Then, director Jeremy McCartor speaks with Barbara Bogay.

1:43.4

Let us once again assail your ears that are so fortified against our story.

2:01.6

Okay. I'm H. H. H.

2:02.6

.

2:03.6

. I'm H

2:29.3

Oh,

2:30.3

Oh,

2:31.3

Oh,

2:32.3

The whole of Toyin'

2:33.3

Dunmars What is it done, Mar? What is it done, Mar?

...

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