On 21 July, we and MOLA, The Stage, and The Dolphin's Back will explore the history and future possibilities for the Curtain playhouse with a public audience at Hackney House. Tickets are available on Eventbrite. The Curtain is one of the earliest playhouses of the Elizabethan period, open by 1577, discovered in 2011, and excavated … Continue reading The Curtain Rises (21 July 2018)
Galatea, BritGrad and diverse alarums
What do we see when we look at early modern plays in contemporary theatre? Well, this is a very UK-based, and probably London-based answer, but we generally see a lot of white, able-bodied cis men in plays about white, able-bodied cis men; we generally see the same 10-15 plays of the 400 or so early … Continue reading Galatea, BritGrad and diverse alarums
Performing words #7: permanent
I'm afraid this blog post will seem especially pedantic and churlish, because it is about the unexpected embedding of a strange word in conversations about early modern theatre history: the word 'permanent'. Theatre history tends to distinguish between playhouses it considers permanent, and those it considers impermanent, despite the fact that no Elizabethan, Jacobean or … Continue reading Performing words #7: permanent
The Woman in the Moon, Edward’s Boys: Review by Leah Scragg
We are thankful to Leah Scragg for her review, here, of Edward's Boys' The Woman in the Moon (8-11 March 2018). You can read the director, Perry Mills, on the production elsewhere on our site, and we also have interviews with the cast. *** Edward’s Boys, under the direction of Perry Mills, might well be said to … Continue reading The Woman in the Moon, Edward’s Boys: Review by Leah Scragg
Losing the Plot: Audiences, Scraps of Performance, and Selective Participation
Further to Andy’s post on story, this post asks questions about the nature and necessity of coherent “story”—and of audiences following “plot”—in early modern commercial dramatic performance. It does so by putting literary and archival material into conversation with archaeological discoveries, and as such I'm thankful to Heather Knight of MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) … Continue reading Losing the Plot: Audiences, Scraps of Performance, and Selective Participation
Performing words #6: matter
what’s the matter? This post follows up some of the points raised by Andy in his discussion of “story” and early modern theatre as part of his Performing Words series. Here, I suggest that the term “matter” might afford a more historically nuanced—and appropriate—vocabulary for thinking about the intersection of “story,” words, and performance. the … Continue reading Performing words #6: matter
The Woman in the Moon: In Conversation with Edward’s Boys
It’s Friday, and we’re hurrying across London Bridge in the rain towards a part-carpeted Methodist Church in London’s Eastcheap: that Elizabethan-sounding nook somewhere loosely between Crutched Friars and Leadenhall (more Tudor echoes). We settle in to observe how woman was first created. Not Genesis 1:27 or 2:22, though. John Lyly’s Pandora. Again, sheltered from the … Continue reading The Woman in the Moon: In Conversation with Edward’s Boys
Women in the Moons
Last year I saw Dolphin's Back's Woman in the Moon; last night I saw Edward's Boy's Woman in the Moon. This is presumably the first time in history anyone has been able to see multiple Women in the Moons, and we're very grateful to both companies for sharing their work with us on this play. It's … Continue reading Women in the Moons
Performing words #5: story
This post is part of a series on theatrical words. For an introduction to the series, see Performing words: introduction to a new thread on theatre and language. How much do we think about stories when we read, perform, produce, watch or study early modern plays? How aware are we of the decisions being made by … Continue reading Performing words #5: story
The First Blackfriars: A Workshop Reflection
On Sunday, we, the Dolphin’s Back, and a room-full of participants were lucky enough to see the history of the Blackfriars and the First Playhouse brought to life on the very spot on which it once stood. Thanks to the Society of Apothecaries, London, we were able to stage the leases, drama, court quarrels, and … Continue reading The First Blackfriars: A Workshop Reflection
