Chapter Two -- What Shakespeare Scholars Can Learn from Theater-Makers About Public Engagement

This chapter opens with a reading of the Measure for Measure put on by the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit in Fall 2019. The cast was all Black women, directed by L.A. Williams. The performance I saw was at the North Brooklyn YMCA—played only a couple of hours before protests rose up against police racism and abuse of force in Downtown Brooklyn.

Based on a talk from the “Public Shakespeare / Public Humanities” panel at the PAMLA conference in November 2019, this chapter argues that Shakespeare scholars interested in public engagement could learn a lot from theaters that are “going mobile” to meet people where they are. The analogy to theater helps us envision a Shakespeare studies of, by, and for all people; radically inclusive and fundamentally democratic; engaged with the most important ideas and social issues of our time. This is Shakespeare studies as a public good, scholarship that belongs to everyone. And the analogy to theater also provides some concrete models for putting those principles into action.

To flesh out this idea, the chapter delivers interviews with artistic directors and educational directors at theaters. I spoke with:

  • Antoni Cimolino: Artistic Director, Stratford Festival
  • Olivia D’Ambrosio Scanton: Managing Director, Worcester Brick Box
  • Karen Ann Daniels: Director of the Mobile Unit, The Public Theater
  • Barry Edelstein: Artistic Director, The Old Globe
  • Sara Enloe: Director of Education, American Shakespeare Center
  • Sidonie Garrett: Executive Artistic Director, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival
  • Joseph Haj: Artistic Director, The Guthrie Theater
  • Sara B.T. Thiel: Public Humanities Manager, Chicago Shakespeare Festival
  • Stephanie Ybarra: Artistic Director, Baltimore Center Stage

Quotes from these interviews are arranged to flow into these 22 points:

  1. Restructure the profession to incentivize Public Shakespeare.
  2. Public Shakespeare is involved in the project of democracy.
  3. Public Shakespeare helps make citizens and create communities.
  4. Public Shakespeare creates space for human experiences, social connections, and cultural conversations.
  5. Public Shakespeare is about the audience, not the academic.
  6. Representation matters in Public Shakespeare.
  7. Public Shakespeare goes mobile—including local, rural, digital, and global.
  8. Public Shakespeare stands for accessibility in all forms.
  9. Public Shakespeare seeks out new perspectives.
  10. Public Shakespeare thinks creatively about how best to perform scholarship.
  11. Public Shakespeare is Bardology, not Bardolatry.
  12. Public Shakespeare Trojan Horses politics into Shakespeare and scholarship into politics.
  13. Public Shakespeare programs for the moment.
  14. Public Shakespeare stops, collaborates, and listens.
  15. Public Shakespeare doesn’t knock the hustle.
  16. Public Shakespeare runs toward joy, hope, justice, and goodness.
  17. Public Shakespeare uses family, fun, and festivity strategically.
  18. Public Shakespeare uses time and space creatively.
  19. Public Shakespeare plays the long game.
  20. Public Shakespeare requires courage.
  21. You don’t need to do Public Shakespeare, but don’t get in our way.
  22. Public Shakespeare is only as strong as the scholarship it’s based on.