From the General Editor Going Public

From the General Editor Going Public Peter Kirwan Shakespeare Bulletin concluded volume 41 with a special issue on "Public Shakespeare and Performance," guest-edited by Sharon O'Dair and Timothy Francisco. In their introduction to that issue, O'Dair and Francisco reflected on a situation in which "theater's long-term capacity for viability, much less radical change" has become the urgent question (501). The potential of theater—and specifically Shakespearean theater—to have a positive impact on communities and practice is the motivator for a great deal of scholarship and practice in the fields that make up Shakespeare Bulletin's purview. And yet, as O'Dair and Francisco reflect, such aspirations can quickly be quashed by the more pragmatic demands of survival. As theaters, alongside arts and humanities departments in higher education institutions, continue to face both financial and political threats to their existence, the imperative to maintain commitment to core values and solidarity with workers, audiences, and communities has rarely felt so urgent. The Shakespeare Association of America's (SAA) 2024 Shakespeare Publics Award committee, which I chaired, received a large number of submissions which offer hope for the future. From international collaborations bringing together artists and scholars to collaborate on urgent issues, to local performances transforming Shakespeare for specific communities, to innovative attempts to capture the grassroots work happening with and around Shakespeare in different media, these nominations—all worthy of recognition and celebration—showcased meaningful attempts to mobilize Shakespeare in the cause of solidarity and collective endeavor. Reading the nominations, I was struck by how many of the projects showcased communities thriving through their shared engagement with Shakespeare, with Shakespeare serving as medium rather than as destination. End Page 1 The SAA awarded prizes to Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero Santos of the Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva ("Reimagining"), recognizing that project's labor in generating fresh performance and scholarship rooted in the bilingual communities of the US-Mexico border, and to Jayme M. Yeo of "Nashville's Shakespeare," celebrating that project's work to create archives of a rich and deep-rooted local history of Shakespeare performance and education. Cassidy Cash, of the prolific "That Shakespeare Life" podcast, received an honorable mention. In celebration of the awardees, we are pleased to make their recent publications with Shakespeare Bulletin open access on a short-term basis. An article on Borderlands Shakespeare by Gillen and A. Santos, and the introduction to a special issue on "Shakespeare on the Regional US Stage" cowritten by Yeo and Niamh O'Leary, can be accessed freely via Project MUSE. Shakespeare Bulletin is continuing to explore options to make more of its content available open access on both short-term and longer-term bases, in recognition not only of the larger philosophical desire to share research and knowledge with the widest possible audience, but also of the practical and unfortunate reality that an increasing number of scholars are working in precarity with limited access to paywalled resources. We are also keen, in the spirit of engaging with our wider publics, to enable more access to and participation in the journal by artists and practitioners working outside of university contexts, and welcome suggestions from our readers for strategies to which we can devote the journal's resources. To this end, we are delighted to welcome Nora J. Williams to the editorial team in the newly created role of Development Editor. Nora will be working to develop pre-production initiatives that will support authors in creating innovative, diverse, and urgent new contributions to the journal. We begin volume 42 with three articles spanning a range of media and practices, all of which draw attention to the conditions of production. From shifting working practices at the American Shakespeare Center, to building performance environments within the confines of a video game, to the materiality of John Lyly's theater craft, the essays in this issue all draw attention in their own way to the work being done by bodies and materials, contextualizing art and interpretation within the labor necessary to realize it. It is my hope and commitment, as we move into 2024, that Shakespeare Bulletin continues to publish the very best new research on...