Scott W. Stern

And every generation since has created its own Margaret, sometimes by restoring her, sometimes by diminishing her, and sometimes by slicing and rearranging Shakespeare's plays so thoroughly that even Shakespeare might have asked to see the final cut.

In Shakespeare's Margaret, the dramatic life of a warrior queen, Charles O'Malley and Scott W. Stern follow Margaret from the 15th century battlefield to the Elizabethan stage and through centuries of performance.

Along the way, she moves from a boy actor in a wig embodying patriarchal fears of dangerous women to a vehicle for actresses including Peggy Ashcroft, Helen Mirren, and Sophie Okonedo, and from misogynist cautionary tale to feminist icon, political commentary, and something more complicated than either.

The book also asks us to reconsider what a Shakespeare play actually is.

Charles O'Malley holds a doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama and has worked at theaters across the United States.

He is also the editor of Toward a Just Pedagogy of Performance.

Scott W. Stern is a scholar and critic and the author of The Trials of Nina McCall, a New York Times editor's choice selection, and there is a deep rooting in Arkansas, which the Times called powerful new history.

So please join me in welcoming Charles O'Malley and Scott W. Stern and the spirit of Margaret of Anjou.