Folger Hosts Free Book Talk and Signing with the Authors of Shakespeare, Not Stirred
Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim to discuss the
Newly Released Book on Friday, September 25
(Washington, DC) – Kicking off the 2015/16 season of free Folger Friday talks, the Folger is delighted to welcome authors Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim to discuss their new book, Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas (September 1, 2015; Perigee Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House) on Friday, September 25 at 6:00pm.
Shakespeare, Not Stirred explores the works of Elizabeth I’s greatest playwright through equal parts booze and Bard, turning a literary icon into your favorite drinking partner. Bicks and Ephraim serve up cocktails and munchies with shots of Shakespearean wisdom on everything from romance to workplace politics. So get out your cocktail shaker and lend him your ears.
Each chapter of Shakespeare, Not Stirred includes original recipes for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres that connect Shakespeare’s characters and plotlines to life’s daily predicaments:
• Drown your sorrows after a workplace betrayal with Othello’s Green-Eyed Monster
• Distract yourself from domestic drama with Kate’s Shrew-driver
• Recapture your youth with Puck’s Magic ‘Shrooms
• Mark a romantic occasion with Beatrice and Benedick’s Much Ado About Frothing
Shakespeare, Not Stirred is illustrated with classic images from the Folger Shakespeare Library collection, hilariously doctored to feature some hard-partying Shakespearean protagonists.
Copies of Shakespeare, Not Stirred will be available for purchase and signing at the event. A champagne cocktail from the book, the “Et Tu, Brut,” will also be available for purchase for patrons over 21 years of age with a valid photo ID.
Shakespeare, Not Stirred will precede a performance of the world premiere of texts&beheadings/ ElizabethR. Part of The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, dedicated to featuring new works by female playwrights, this limited engagement (on stage at the Folger September 19 – October 4), produced in conjunction with the international theater collective Compagnia de’ Colombari, draws on the Folger collection of Elizabeth I’s letters to explore the life and language of Shakespeare’s Queen.
TICKET INFORMATION
Individual tickets for Shakespeare, Not Stirred are free. Reservations are requested at www.folger.edu/talks-screenings-more and will be available in early September.
About Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim:
Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim are both popular, tenured Shakespeare professors at their respective universities, and their Shakespeare-inspired personal essays and articles have appeared in such venues as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Lilith, and All Things Considered.
Caroline Bicks received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and has been on the faculty at Boston College for twelve years, as well as a teacher at the prestigious Bread Loaf School of English. She is the author of Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England and co-editor of The History of British Women’s Writing, 1500-1610, Volume 2. Bicks also writes humorous parenting pieces that have appeared on Babble, McSweeney’s, and in the show and essay collection Afterbirth: Stories You Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine.
Michelle Ephraim received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been on the faculty at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for fifteen years. She is the author of Reading the Jewish Woman on the Elizabethan Stage as well as numerous articles on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature. Ephraim’s humorous life writing has appeared in publications such as The Morning News, Tikkun, and Word Riot, and has been featured on Open Salon.
Tickets & Information:
What: Folger Friday, Shakespeare, Not Stirred
When/Where: Friday, September 25 at 6:00pm
Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol St., SE, Washington, DC
Tickets: FREE, reservations requested.
Tickets for the performance of texts&beheadings/ElizabethR at 8:00pm are $35.
Both available online at www.folger.edu or by calling the Folger Box Office at 202.544.7077
Metro: Capitol South (blue/orange lines) or Union Station (red line)
Parking: Limited street parking in Capitol Hill neighborhood
About Folger Theatre and Folger Shakespeare Library:
Folger Theatre is the centerpiece of Folger Shakespeare Library’s programs for the public and is recognized for dynamic performances in its 250-seat Elizabethan-styled theatre and for specializing in innovative stagings of works by Shakespeare, other classical work, and new plays inspired by these traditions. Since 1991, Folger Theatre has been honored by the Helen Hayes Awards with 23 awards and 135 nominations for excellence in acting, direction, design, and production–including the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Resident Play in 2011 for Hamlet (a year in which all three of Folger’s theatrical productions were nominated in that category) and in 2013 for The Taming of the Shrew. In 2012, Folger Theatre brought Shakespeare’s Globe’s Hamlet from London for the company’s first Washington appearance and continued that collaboration with the World-to-World two-year global tour of Hamlet, as well as bringing the touring production of King Lear featuring Joseph Marcell to the Folger in 2014. Folger Theatre produced The Two Gentlemen of Verona with the highly celebrated Fiasco Theater Company, a production that went on to win two Helen Hayes Awards, including “Outstanding Ensemble in a Play,” and was restaged at the Theatre for A New Audience in New York City for an extended run this summer. In November, Folger Theatre will partner with The Oregon Shakespeare Festival to bring their critically acclaimed Pericles to Washington, D.C. before that production transfers to The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Janet Alexander Griffin is the Artistic Producer of Folger Theatre and Director of Public Programs which includes the Folger’s music and literary series.
Folger Shakespeare Library is a renowned center for scholarship, learning, culture, and the arts. Home to the world’s largest Shakespeare collection and a primary repository for research material from the early modern period (1500-1750), Folger Shakespeare Library is an internationally recognized research library offering advanced scholarly programs in the humanities; a national leader in how Shakespeare is taught in grades K-12; and an award-winning producer of cultural and arts programs –theatre, music, poetry, exhibits, lectures, and family programs. A gift to the American people from industrialist Henry Clay Folger, Folger Shakespeare Library–located one block east of the U.S. Capitol–opened in 1932 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Learn more at www.folger.edu.
