"Richard III" in Prison

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Frannie Shepherd-Bates founded Shakespeare in Prison in 2012. Nine years later, SIP is the signature community program of the Detroit Public Theatre, and has worked on a total of eight plays with a women’s ensemble at Huron Valley Correctional Facility and a men’s ensemble at Parnall Correctional Facility. When one of the members of the men’s ensemble suggested that SIP should find a way to share their work to make it easier for others to approach, he inspired a new project. Shakespeare in Prison is creating a new critical edition of "Richard III" that pairs Shakespeare’s text with the perspectives of incarcerated women who worked with the play over the course of 2016 and 2017. We speak with Frannie Shepherd-Bates about SIP and the book, "Richard III—In Prison: A Critical Edition," which she says offers readers a chance to approach the play from a place of “radical empathy.” Shepherd-Bates is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Frannie Shepherd-Bates is the Director of Shakespeare in Prison for the Detroit Public Theatre, where she’s also an actor, director, choreographer, and dialect coach. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published April 27, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Your Imprisonment Shall Not Be Long,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We often like to say Shakespeare is for everyone.
0:03.8	And you know what? It really, really is.
0:12.5	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:17.1	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:20.1	Theater artists have been taking the plays of Shakespeare into prisons for many years now,
0:24.6	so the transformative impact these plays can have, while inspiring and remarkable, isn't new.
0:31.6	What is new, though, and potentially groundbreaking, is an initiative being launched by the Detroit Public
0:38.5	Theater. Starting about two years ago, artists there began recording the thoughts and ideas,
0:45.4	the singular and uncommon insights and perspectives expressed by inmates whom they had worked
0:50.9	with at the Huron Valley Correctional Facility, a woman's prison in Ipsilanti.
0:56.3	As we record this, those artists are in the process of taking all of that material
1:01.5	and releasing it as a new critical edition of Richard III.
1:06.3	Critical editions are those versions of Shakespeare with additional materials to give it context, things
1:12.5	like essays and comments by scholars and writers.
1:16.1	In this edition, Shakespeare's still there, of course, but the facing page has a fresh
1:20.9	look at the play and all of its underlying meanings spoken in the voices of women who are
1:26.0	rarely part of the analysis of Shakespeare.
1:29.0	As you'll hear, their thoughts can be startling, eye-opening, and truly notable.
1:35.6	The co-founder of this project is actor, director, choreographer, and dialect coach
1:41.0	Franny Shepard Bates. She joined us from her home to talk about how the project got started
1:47.0	and what it could add to our understanding of Shakespeare's work.
1:51.1	We call this podcast, Your imprisonment shall not be long.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Folger Shakespeare Library, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Folger Shakespeare Library and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.