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b'The next time someone complains about a director changing or tampering with Shakespeare\\u2026 we\\u2019ve got an answer for them.\\n\\nThe first generation of theater artists after Shakespeare weren\\u2019t particularly concerned about performing Shakespeare\'s plays the way they appear in the First Folio. After the English Civil War, the Puritan-led government outlawed theater for eighteen years. When Charles II ascended to the throne, in the period we now call the Restoration, theater came back to life. With no new plays, producers like William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew turned to Shakespeare\\u2026 but they made some pretty big changes to keep up with the times. Restoration-era Shakespeare featured new characters, changed scripts, and grand musical interludes inspired by court masques.\\n\\nDr. Richard Schoch of Queen\\u2019s University Belfast lay out this history in his new book, "A Short History of Shakespeare in Performance." We spoke with Schoch about the theater in the Restoration and what we can learn from them after our own year without live theater. Schoch is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. \\n\\nRichard Schoch is a professor in the School of Arts, English and Languages at Queen\\u2019s University Belfast. \\u201cA Short History of Shakespeare in Performance: From the Restoration to the Twenty-First Century\\u201d was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. \\n\\nFrom the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 6, 2021. \\xa9 Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, \\u201cChange It, Change It,\\u201d was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Gareth Wood at The Sound Company in London. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu.'