This essay considers the use of Shakespeare as marker of authenticity and as a therapeutic space for performers and audiences across a number of genres, from professional actors in training literature to prison inmates in radio and film documentaries. It argues that in the wake of recent academic trends—the critique of Shakespeare as an author figure; the privileging of the text as a source of multiple, potentially conflicting readings—Shakespeare\u27s function as cultural capital has shifted sites, from Shakespeare to the playtexts themselves
