Jacob Ming-Trent on How Shakespeare Saved My Life

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.8 • 878 Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

One small step into the wrong classroom becomes a giant leap into a new life as a Shakespearean actor. That’s how Jacob Ming-Trent tells it in his remarkable one-man tour-de-force, How Shakespeare Saved My Life. As the Folger prepares to welcome How Shakespeare Saved My Life to the stage this June, Ming-Trent joins us to delve deeper into his story. Ming-Trent is no stranger to the Folger stage, having previously presented How Shakespeare Saved My Life at the 2024 Reading Room Festival and portrayed Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2022. A multitalented stage and screen actor, he has appeared in Broadway musicals from Gypsy to Shrek, television series like Watchmen and Ray Donovan, and films including The Forty-Year-Old Version and Friendship. In this episode, Ming-Trent presents Shakespeare as an urban poet in the vein of Tupac and Biggie. He breaks down the inspiration behind How Shakespeare Saved My Life and how he brings his own experience to his interpretation of Shakespeare’s words, rearranging and reframing them to create something uniquely personal.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:08.2	I'm Farah Karim Cooper, the Folger director.
0:13.5	Name the greatest hip-hop artists of all time.
0:16.6	Biggie?
0:17.6	Jay-Z?
0:18.8	Maybe.
0:19.8	Make room for one more.
0:20.8	The Word Wizard, the Stratford Scribes, the Royal Rama himself, William Shakespeare.
0:30.1	That's Jacob Ming Trent in his one-man show How Shakespeare Save My Life.
0:35.5	The play is based on Ming Trent's own experience discovering Shakespeare
0:39.8	as a teenager. Since that momentous discovery, Ming Trent has appeared on Broadway in shows such as
0:48.7	Gypsy and Shrek the musical, on TV series like Watchmen and Ray Donovan, and in films like Friendship and the 40-year-old
0:59.4	version. Ming Trent has also put his Shakespearean chops into practice. He played Falstaff in the
1:07.2	Merry Wives of Windsor and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night,
1:11.3	both at New York's Public Theater.
1:13.8	He's also appeared in the Merchant of Venice
1:16.3	at Theater for a New Audience
1:18.2	and a Midsummer Night's Dream
1:20.0	at Folger Theater.
1:22.3	How Shakespeare Save My Life starts
1:24.8	with Ming Trent welcoming his audience
1:27.4	like members of a church.
	...

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