BONUS: ‘Dickinson’ — Shakespeare Club in the Apple TV series

featuring interviews with Alena Smith and Adrian Blake Enscoe

William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson — both are frequently declared to be among the very best writers in the English language. And now, for Dickinson’s 195th birthday, the time has come to delve into both iconic poets on Shakespeare’s Shadows.

This bonus episode spotlights the Peabody Award-winning Apple TV series Dickinson, particularly looking back at the series’ fifth episode, when Emily and her siblings host Shakespeare Club. Emily (played by Hailee Steinfeld) chooses Othello for the club’s latest gathering. The play ends up being a contentious choice for these young people growing up in the years approaching the American Civil War, a launchpad for Dickinson to explore questions of privilege and identity.

Featuring interviews with Dickinson alums from both behind and in front of the camera, we discuss how the series’ writers packed so much into that one episode of the show, their memories from making that special episode including one fabulous montage dripping with Shakespearean Easter eggs, and why fans of Shakespeare should spend more time with Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

Guests on this episode are:

Alena Smith (she/her), creator and showrunner of Dickinson, which was released on Apple TV from 2019 to 2021. She holds an MFA in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama. Among her published plays are The New Splendid, The Bad Guys, and Plucker. Currently she is an executive producer and writer on FX’s upcoming limited series Cry Wolf.
Adrian Blake Enscoe (he/they), who plays Emily Dickinson’s brother, Austin, in Dickinson. Adrian was in the Broadway original cast of the musical Swept Away. They are a member of the folk-pop-americana trio Bandits on the Run, which released their latest EP, The Shakespeare Tapes, in May 2025.

Also appearing in this bonus episode is poet, actor, and teaching artist Melissa Lauricella Bergstrom reading the Dickinson poem “I am afraid to own a Body,” the poem that inspired the title of the Shakespeare Club Dickinson episode.

This episode contains explicit language and discussion of racism and slavery.