What is ‘Anti-Racist Shakespeare’?

So glad you asked! It’s a series of free webinars generously sponsored by Cambridge University Press, where we bring together leading scholars and theatre artists of colour to talk about Shakespeare’s plays through the lens of race and social justice.

Since we launched in 2021 with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we’ve featured fourteen plays and counting. Our goal is to get through the entire canon!

Who are these webinars for?

The webinars are designed with all sorts of people in mind: students, educators, researchers, practitioners, and of course, lovers of Shakespeare. People more broadly interested in contemporary British theatre or issues related to representation in the arts have also tuned in. And, after our live event, we make a recording of the webinar available on the Globe’s YouTube channel, where our total views are in the tens of thousands from all around the world! Teachers have also assigned or shown our webinars in their classes, which is hugely satisfying.

Are there that many ‘raced’ characters in Shakespeare?

Excellent question! It’s not the case that we’re just interested in talking about overtly racialized characters or themes such as we find in Othello or The Merchant of Venice.

It’s also our aim to examine a whole range of issues like the whiteness of power, ideals of beauty, the history and legacy of English imperialism, recontextualizing Shakespeare in non-English cultures, the performance of various marginalized or minoritized identities, present-day casting and rehearsal practices, decentring who ‘owns’ Shakespeare, the list goes on.

What questions about ‘Shakespeare and race’ do you get a lot?

For starters, I think there’s still the impression that a play must feature non-white characters to put it in conversation with today’s social issues. That’s not the case at all. Scholars like Arthur L. Little, Jr. have shown that the making of whiteness is embedded in Shakespeare’s canon, while others like our very own Farah Karim-Cooper that Shakespeare has been used to advance English cultural identity and authority for a long time now.

Our aim with the webinars is to keep ideas and experiences about racial and cultural differences in view, whether it’s the colourism that pervades Shakespeare’s language or showing how we can open up all sorts of discussions by simply approaching the plays with different actors or audiences in mind.

Another misconception is along similar lines – are we saying that his plays are only about race? Not at all! If our series were called ‘Shakespeare and Politics’, would you question whether the plays couldn’t also be about love or family relationship? There are so many conversations Shakespeare can be a part of.

Do you have a favourite webinar?

Hmm, how about ‘memorable’? The very first webinar I hosted was on Romeo and Juliet back in July 2021. I had the great pleasure of moderating a discussion between Dr Varsha Panjwani, a UK-based scholar and podcast creator, and Kathy Hsieh, a US-based actor and theatre creative. This webinar was inspired by the play’s immense popularity in Indian cinema, which led me to Varsha’s scholarship on multicultural and Indian Shakespeare.

While looking for an artist, I came across a show Kathy had been in. She played Lady Capulet in a production set in Central Asia, where the Capulets were Chinese and the Montagues were Russian. Wow! Varsha and Kathy were brilliant together. They showed how Romeo and Juliet, a play many people admire for being a ‘universal’ love story, can explore something like Asian cultures in our present moment – varieties of lived experience, ongoing stereotypes, non-traditional casting, the value of representation in the theatre, diverse styles of storytelling, you name it. By approaching Shakespeare’s play from the perspective of Indian audiences or relocating Romeo and Juliet to a different cultural setting, Varsha and Kathy showed how the play is relevant to diverse audiences.

What’s next for ‘Anti-Racist Shakespeare’?

Well, we’ve recently kicked off Season Two of the webinars, which puts us on par with White Lotus! Next up are The Comedy of Errors and Macbeth, and we’ve got some amazing guests lined up. Will there be a Season Three? We’re not planning to kill anyone off, so things are looking good.

Hanh Bui is the Globe’s Teaching and Research Fellow. The next Anti-Racist Shakespeare webinar on The Comedy of Errors is on 1 June. Join us later this summer for webinars on Macbeth and As You Like It.