After Shakespeare’s death, his plays didn’t immediately become sacred texts, they became commodities. In this episode, we dive into the publishing chaos of the early 1600s, where bad quartos, cash grabs, and loose copyrights threatened to fracture his legacy. Enter John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends determined to wrestle Shakespeare’s work back from the mess. Along the way, we unpack how Ben Jonson’s audacious move to publish his own complete works, the original literary box set, helped light the fuse.

By 1609, William Shakespeare had been writing plays for nearly two decades. He was a household name in London, his company—now the King’s Men—enjoyed royal patronage, and their new indoor stage at Blackfriars promised a fresh era of theatrical success. By all accounts, Shakespeare was still at the height of his career.

But behind the curtain, things were shifting. The endless grind of plague closures had slowed his output. His family life was changing—his daughter Susanna married, his mother passed, his first grandchild was born. And in his plays, we see something else: a tone that grows more experimental, more reflective, even more personal than before. Fathers soften. Endings grow stranger. And Shakespeare himself seems to be stepping back, handing the reins to younger playwrights, and perhaps preparing for retirement.

In this episode, we explore the final stretch of Shakespeare’s career: from the collaborative experiments of Timon of Athens and Pericles, to the intimate revelations of the Sonnets, and finally, to his last solo masterpiece, The Tempest—a play that reads like his farewell to the stage. We’ll also meet the rising talent John Fletcher, soon to become Shakespeare’s partner in his last works, and learn how the fire that consumed the Globe in 1613 symbolized the end of an era.

And then, silence. By 1616, Shakespeare is gone. But his words are not. The question is: how would those words survive? And who would ensure they reached us?

Shakespeare’s death in 1616 could have meant the loss of his words forever. Many of his plays existed only in fragile manuscripts and cheap, error-filled quartos. Then, seven years later, two of his fellow actors—John Heminges and Henry Condell—took on the monumental task of preserving their friend’s work.

Their project became the First Folio of 1623: the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Without it, we would have no Macbeth, no Twelfth Night, no The Tempest. With it, Shakespeare’s reputation leapt from playwright of his time to literary giant for all time.

Season 4 of Will: What Is He Good For? uncovers the story of the First Folio: how it was assembled, why it mattered, and how one book turned Shakespeare into a legend whose words continue to shape our world four centuries later.

In the Season 3 finale of Will: What is He Good For? we explore how Shakespeare’s writing was shaped not only by the theaters and venues where his plays were performed, but also by the monarchy and the shifting tastes of his audiences.

We trace his evolution from writing for traveling troupes—where simple staging and minimal sets were a necessity—to the grandeur of the Globe, where plays like Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Hamlet thrived on the energy of large, dynamic spaces. Later, with access to the more intimate Blackfriars Theatre, Shakespeare experimented with subtler staging and more introspective storytelling, giving us works like The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.

Across these spaces, Shakespeare’s characters and stories grew in depth and complexity, reflecting not just his genius but also the demands and opportunities of the stage.

To close the season, we ask: who really shaped Shakespeare? Was it the patronage and influence of monarchs like Elizabeth I and James I, the performance spaces that demanded new styles of writing, or was it simply Shakespeare’s unmatched ability to tune into his world and transform it into timeless art?

Along with the adult acting troupes, such as the Queen's Men, there was another genre of acting troupes that influenced Shakespeare and his writing. Children's, or boy acting troupes and their rise in popularity caught Shakespeare's attention and caused him to elevate his writing.

On February 2nd in 1585, Shakespeare signs a baptismal certificate for his twin children Judith and Hamnet. This is the last record we have of what he is doing for the next seven years and beginning what scholars call his “lost years” There are many, many theories of what he was doing during this time. In this episode, we explore the story of William Knell and the Queen’s Men, and how it may shed some light on the unexpected journey the young man from Stratford would ultimately embark on.

This season, we're taking a deeper look at the evolving theatre scene of the 1500-1600s and how the way plays were produced influenced what ended up in the final texts we have of William Shakespeare. In our first episode, we explore one of the earliest influences on the young Bard: traveling and touring theater companies. Listen in to learn more about the types of productions being produced in the late 1500s and the way those touring productions shaped the written texts we know today.

Season 3 of Will: What is He Good For? is coming soon! Join us for another fun-filled series of Shakespeare history and an exploration of his plays. This season we're taking deeper look at the landscape of Elizabethan theatre, who was performing what and how.

Listen to our teaser episode to learn more about what to expect from this season.

From the traveling acting troupes that he would eventually join, to the children’s acting troupes that rivaled his own Lord’s Chamberlain's Men in popularity, to the spaces he worked and wrote for.

We’ll look to the text to find examples of how Shakespeare incorporated his life on the Elizabethan stage, into his work and also consider the broader historical context.

Join us for Season 3 of Will: What is He Good For? From the Stage to the Page.