Inside Hamlet’s Head with Jeremy McCarter

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

What if, instead of just watching Hamlet, you could step inside the prince’s mind? A revelatory new audio production reimagines Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy as a first-person experience told through Hamlet’s POV. We only hear the scenes in which he appears—every soliloquy becomes an inner monologue, every whisper a voice in our ears. With stunning binaural sound design by Tony Award–winner Mikhail Fiksel and an intimate, close-mic performance by Daniel Kyri (“Chicago Fire”) as the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet is transformed into a deeply personal journey through grief, paranoia, memory, and resolve. The six-episode podcast of Hamlet is produced by Make-Believe Association, an audio storytelling group based in Chicago. The production, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, includes performances by John Douglas Thompson as Claudius (and the Ghost), Sharon Washington as Gertrude, and Jacob Ming-Trent as Polonius. In this episode, director Jeremy McCarter shares how technology unlocked new layers of intimacy and urgency in Shakespeare’s play—and why, more than 400 years later, Hamlet’s questions still resonate. >>>Listen to Hamlet at hamlet.fm or wherever you listen to podcasts. Headphones heighten the experience! From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 29, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc. Jeremy McCarter founded Make-Believe Association in 2017 after five years on the artistic staff of the Public Theater in New York. For the company, he adapted The Lost Books of the Odyssey; co-wrote City on Fire: Chicago Race Riot 1919 (with Natalie Moore); co-created and co-wrote the acclaimed epic Lake Song (Tribeca Festival Audio Premiere, winner of three Signal Awards), and adapted and directed the audacious new take on Hamlet. His books include Young Radicals; Hamilton: The Revolution (with Lin-Manuel Miranda); and Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen (with Jon M. Chu). He has written about culture and politics for New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is the literary executor of the novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder.