Hamlet, Thy Name is Woman. | Sara Clark | TEDxCincinnatiWomen

Women have been playing Hamlet since the 1700s. So why does the choice to cast a female actor in Shakespeare’s largest role still matter today? Sara Clark is an actor, playing Hamlet as a woman at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company in 2020. She talks about how the decision to play the Bard’s most temperamentally capricious and preternaturally intelligent character as a woman can help us imagine a better world. Learn more at: Sara Clark is a philomath and a storyteller, who believes wholeheartedly in curiosity, empathy, and the power of words. She is a resident actor, director, producer, teaching artist, and grants administrator with Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, currently serving as its Associate Artistic Director. As a fourteen-year member of the CSC Resident Ensemble, she has racked up over 75 productions with CSC, tackling such roles as Rosalind, Juliet, Marc Antony, Elizabeth Bennet, Lady Macbeth, and in the spring of 2020, Hamlet. Sara is a Shakespeare mythbuster and loves teaching with CSC’s Shakespeare Summer Camp and Groundlings Program, a year-long Shakespeare intensive for high school students. She genuinely believes that one person talking to one person is the only thing that will ever change the world. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at