One of the concerns of Before Shakespeare is the impact of the canon on contemporary performance, editorial practice and theatre history. Dramatists, like playhouses, are often divided, either explicitly or implicitly, into groups deemed major or minor. Over the next four weeks, we’ll be publishing papers from the 2019 annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association […]
It’s recently proved effective for critics and historians to conjure a thick cultural history by concentrating on one particular year (e.g. 1611; 1606…). Even the arguably patchier nature of theatre history has lent itself to studies concentrated on a specific date: think, for instance, James Shapiro’s entertaining account of the Globe, 1599. Writing a Year-in-a-Playhouse […]
How might modern performance histories and theatrical experiments advance research on Tudor plays? On Friday 1stMarch at Newcastle University, an event on ‘Tudor Plays in Performance’ will address this question. Professor Jessica Winston will speak about Tudor drama and modern traditions of “partial” performance. The event will also involve a staged reading of little-known Tudor […]
The Elizabethan Office of the Revels begins an important section of its yearly account books headed “Christmas, Newyeares tyde, & Twelfetyde” with descriptions of “Woorkes doone & Attendaunce geven Abowte the new making, Translating, ffytting, ffurnishing, garnishing, setting owte & Taking in againe, Making cleane & safe bestowing of sundry kyndes of Apparell properties, ffurniture, & […]
This post also features on Engendering the Stage, a research project with which we are in dialogue that explores women, gender, and performance in early modern Europe. Stay tuned for project blog posts from Engendering the Stage in the coming weeks! The crossovers between the research projects Before Shakespeare and Engendering the Stage were raised several […]
