Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Equivocation, When Shakespeare Rewrites History

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a failed attempt to assassinate King James I of England and blow up Parliament. The “official” story is that Catholic sympathizers were protesting a Protestant king, but many disagree and argue that it was a plot by Protestants to discredit Catholics.

The play “Equivocation” grapples with this muddled history and playwright Bill Cain writes his own alternative: King James I and his secretary of state Robert Cecil ask Shakespeare to write a play about their version of the gun plot to give it credibility. The show, onstage now at Raleigh’s Theatre in the Park, grapples with the balance between truth and art, and explores parallels between the early 1600s and modern day political life. 

Host Frank Stasio is joined in studio for performance and conversation with director Jerry Sipp and actors Jim O’Brien and Jason Hassell. “Equivocation” is on stage at the  Ira David Wood Pullen Park Theatre through Sunday, June 21. 

Stay Connected
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.