Crash Course
The Birth of Off Broadway: Crash Course Theater #47
By the middle of the 20th century, the epicenter of American theater, the Broadway theater district in New York, was getting to be a pretty staid and commercial place. There was a lot of money to be made from prestige plays and dancing...
Crash Course
Crash Course Theater and Drama Preview!
We're back! This year Mike Rugnetta is teaching you about theater and drama. Are you in drama club? Want to know about the history of theater? Maybe learn some theater history? Have a lot of fun? This is the series for you! Over the next...
Crash Course
Gender, Guilt, and Fate - Macbeth, Part 2: Crash Course Literature 410
This week on Crash Course Literature, John Green is continuing to talk about Shakespeare's dark, bloody, Scottish play, Macbeth. This time around, we're looking at the play's characters operate, how the play deals with gender, and the...
Crash Course
Love or Lust? Romeo and Juliet Part II: Crash Course English Literature
In which John Green returns to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to explore the themes of true love, lust, and whether Romeo and Juliet were truly, deeply in love, or they were just a pair of impetuous teens. How exactly did Romeo...
Crash Course
Of Pentameter & Bear Baiting - Romeo & Juliet Part I: Crash Course English Literature
In which John Green examines Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare. John delves into the world of Bill Shakespeare's famous star-crossed lovers and examines what the play is about, its structure, and the context in which it was written....
Crash Course
Ophelia, Gertrude, and Regicide - Hamlet II: Crash Course Literature 204
In which John Green teaches you MORE about Bill Shakespeare's Hamlet. John talks about gender roles in Hamlet, and what kind of power and agency Ophelia and Gertrude had, if they had any at all (spoiler alert: we think they did). You'll...
Crash Course
Free Will, Witches, Murder, and Macbeth, Part 1: Crash Course Literature 409
The Sound! The Fury! Today, we're talking about Shakespeare's Scottish play, Macbeth. So, was Macbeth really predestined to do all the murdering and bad kinging and other terrible stuff? That's the big question in Macbeth, and it's one...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why should you read "A Midsummer Night's Dream?" - Iseult Gillespie
By the light of the moon, a group sneaks into the woods, where they take mind-altering substances, switch it up romantically and brush up against creatures from another dimension. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” sees Shakespeare play with...
Crash Course
Comedies, Romances, and Shakespeare's Heroines: Crash Course Theater #16
This week we're continuing our discussion of William Shakespeare and looking at his comedies and romances. As well as something called problem plays. Some of his plays, they had problems. We'll also put on pants, escape to forest, and...
Crash Course
English Theater After Shakespeare: Crash Course Theater #17
This week on Crash Course Theater, Shakespeare is dead. Long live Shakespeare. Well, long live English theater, anyway. Actually, it's about to get banned. Anyway, we're discussing where English theater went post-1616. We'll talk about...
TED Talks
James Geary: Metaphorically speaking
Aphorism enthusiast and author James Geary waxes on a fascinating fixture of human language: the metaphor. Friend of scribes from Aristotle to Elvis, metaphor can subtly influence the decisions we make, Geary says.
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter - David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor
Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad rap in high schools for his complex plots and antiquated language. But a quick peek into the rhythm of his words reveals a poet deeply rooted in the way people spoke in his time - and still speak today....
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why should you read Shakespeare's "The Tempest"? - Iseult Gillespie
Explore William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”, a story of shipwreck, magic and a fight for power. -- Claps of thunder and flashes of lightning illuminate a swelling sea, as a ship buckles beneath the waves. It is no ordinary storm,...
Crash Course
Straight Outta Stratford-Upon-Avon - Shakespeare's Early Days: Crash Course Theater #14
This is the story of how a young Englishman named William Shakespeare stormed London's theater scene in the late 16th century, and wrote a bunch of plays and poems that have had pretty good staying power. We'll learn about Shakespeare's...
TED Talks
Doris Kearns Goodwin: Lessons from past presidents
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about what we can learn from American presidents, including Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson. Then she shares a moving memory of her own father, and of their shared love of baseball.
TED Talks
TED: The art of stillness | Pico Iyer
The place that travel writer Pico Iyer would most like to go? Nowhere. In a counterintuitive and lyrical meditation, Iyer takes a look at the incredible insight that comes with taking time for stillness. In our world of constant movement...
TED Talks
How theater weathers wars, outlasts empires and survives pandemics | Cara Greene Epstein
When catastrophe strikes, art prevails -- and has done so for centuries. In this fascinating talk, writer and director Cara Greene Epstein places the closing of theaters during the coronavirus pandemic in a historical context, exploring...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Shakespearean dating tips - Anthony John Peters
Beyond giving the world dozens of English language masterpieces and inventing countless words (including the word countless), William Shakespeare, ever the overachieving bard, especially had a way with the romantic turn of phrase....
SciShow
Hank Meets a Giant Squid and Other News
Hank is back in the studio and is very excited to be able again to share news of the universe with you, including his encounter with a giant squid, an English king discovered under a parking lot, new pyramids discovered in Africa, and...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why should you read "Macbeth"? - Brendan Pelsue
There's a play so powerful that an old superstition says its name should never be uttered in a theater. A play that begins with witchcraft and ends with a bloody, severed head. A play filled with riddles, prophecies, nightmare visions,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Pazit Cahlon and Alex Gendler: What "Machiavellian" really means
From Shakespeare's plays to modern TV dramas, the unscrupulous schemer for whom the ends always justify the means has become a familiar character type we love to hate. For centuries, we've had a single word to describe such characters:...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Did Shakespeare write his plays? - Natalya St. Clair and Aaron Williams
Some people question whether Shakespeare really wrote the works that bear his name _ or whether he even existed at all. Could it be true that the greatest writer in the English language was as fictional as his plays? Natalya St. Clair...
Crash Course
The English Renaissance and NOT Shakespeare: Crash Course Theater #13
The Renaissance came to England late, thanks to a Hundred Years War that ran long and lasted 116 years, and then a civil war to decide who would be the royal family. BUT after all that, with the Tudors (relatively) securely installed on...
TED Talks
TED: An honest history of an ancient and "nasty" word | Kate Lister
With candor and cunning, sex historian Kate Lister chronicles the curious journey of an ancient, honest word with innocent origins and a now-scandalous connotation in this uproarious love letter to etymology, queens, cows and all things...