Shorts 3: The Book of Will and the First Folio

What’s it like to go to the theater to see Shakespeare but then see a play about his works instead of seeing one of his works? Pretty rad, actually! In this episode, I’m covering The Book of Will, a play by Lauren Gunderson about the efforts behind the printing of the First Folio.

The First Folio is one of the most revered books in the English language and often has this air of grandeur about it that makes it feel unreal. Is it the untouchable work of a complete genius and we can only grovel at its feet?

Not exactly. The First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays was the result of years of effort from his friends to get them compiled, edited, typeset and printed. Once you started reading into the publication of the book, you start to learn all these fun quirks about it and the errors it contains that make it very human.

Gunderson’s play largely captures the human element of the story, what Henry Condell and John Heminges went through to get the First Folio printed and why they wanted to do it in the first place. It’s an accessible story that holds Shakespeare’s words in high esteem without asking you to be intimately familiar with all his works.

This is the last short episode before we start the next season in two weeks! Can’t wait to get into it.

Credit where credit is due

Podcast art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠