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Two-time Tony Award winner Bebe Neuwirth discusses her roles as Hippolyta and Titania in the Classic Stage Company’s new production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” She’ll also talk about her new album, “Porcelain.”

Take one of the greatest love stories of all time and replace the Montagues with Sunnis, the Capulets with Shiites, and set the play in Iraq. That’s the premise for the new play “Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad” showing this week at the World Shakespeare Festival in the United Kingdom. Listen to playwright and actor Monadhil Daood.

Actor, author, and director Simon Callow discusses his role in the new play “Being Shakespeare.” Written and researched by preeminent Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate, Shakespeare’s prose is layered with British history and culture, providing a comprehensive picture of how Shakespeare’s childhood, schooling, and life during the Elizabethan period would have inspired his characters. Callow is the author if 16 books and has starred in the films "Amadeus," "A Room with a View," "Shakespeare in Love," "Four Weddings and a Funeral," among others. “Being Shakespeare” is playing at BAM April 4-14.

Shakespeare in the Wild West? Apparently the Bard was quite popular in hotels, riverboats and mining camps, so a new production of his comedy "The Taming Of The Shrew" is set on the western frontier, and features music drawn from 19th century songs and from Italian opera. Director Arin Arbus, composer/arranger Michael Friedman and the cast join us to perform live.

Five years ago, the LA Times named Thomas Hampson’s title role performance in Verdi’s Macbeth at the San Francisco Opera one of the “Best of 2007.” This week, the baritone brings his portrayal of the Shakespeare character to the Met for the first time. He joins us in the studio to talk about this role - and his other recent projects.

Haydn Gwynne talks about her role as Queen Elizabeth in the Bridge Project’s production of "Richard III" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, directed by Sam Mendes and featuring Kevin Spacey in the title role.

Ralph Fiennes talks about directing and starring in the new film “Coriolanus,” based on the play by William Shakespeare. It tells the story of a Roman General who is at odds with the city of Rome and his fellow citizens. His controlling mother Volumnia (played by Vanessa Redgrave) pushes him to seek the position of Consul, but the public refuses to support him. Coriolanus’s anger prompts a riot, and he is expelled from Rome. He then allies himself with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (played by Gerard Butler) to take his revenge on the city.

When we talk about badness and human nature, we keep smacking into a persistent problem: how do you explain cruelty? James Shapiro, professor of English at Columbia University, zeroes in on the drama of this question with a maddening insight from Shakespeare, by way of the villainous Iago.

And that ...

Sam Waterston, who plays King Lear; Kelli O’Hara, who plays Regan; and Michael McKean, who plays Gloucester, discuss the production of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” at the Public Theater. It’s playing through November 20.

Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld talk about co-directing and also starring in the Fiasco Theater Company’s production of “Cymbeline.” The Shakespeare drama tells the story of a beautiful princess separated from her beloved, the cruel step-mother who tries to kill her, a husband duped by an adversary, an exiled nobleman who kidnaps a king's sons, and a Roman invasion of Britain. “Cymbeline” is playing at the Barrow Street Theatre.

Maestros, masterpieces, a minimalist and a modern instrument aren’t just highlights of the new classical music season — they’re subjects of a crop of new books about classical music.

On WQX-Aria, Fred Plotkin considers the operatic potential of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, including whether the character of the bear should have a singing part.

The most telling thing about “The Winter’s Tale,” currently in repertory with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Park Avenue Armory, is what it does not show. We eagerly anticipate the moment when all will be revealed.

Danai Gurira, who plays Isabella, and Reg Rogers, who plays Lucio in “Measure for Measure” (and Parolles in “All’s Well That Ends Well”) discuss the production of “Measure for Measure,” part of this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park. “Measure for Measure” in repertory with “All’s Well That Ends Well” at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park through July 30.

Chris Adrian describes his novel The Great Night, a mesmerizing retelling of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The second of four panel discussions held in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company residency at The Park Avenue Armory focused on “Directing Shakespeare."

"As You Like It" is considered a romantic comedy, and it certainly has the right “boy meets girl” ingredients. In fact, by the end of the play four boys meet girls. But though the relationship of the central couple, Rosalind and Orlando, is a core element in the work, and is heard in a minor key in the wooings of the three other couples, Michael Boyd’s production for the Royal Shakespeare Company reminds us that all kinds of love are on offer here. There is parental love, filial love, the love of servant for master, and vice versa; there is instant love, devoted love, rejected love — and all of them are put to the test in the Forest of Arden.

Peter Brook was a legendary director with the Royal Shakespeare Company (R.S.C.) in the 1960s and 1970s; Michael Boyd is the current Artistic Director. The two were recently brought together in the first of a series of discussions being presented by the Park Avenue Armory in conjunction with the R.S.C.’s summer residency.