Wrestling Resurgence, @RobBrazierPhoto This weekend would have seen our first workshop on wrestling, gender and entertainment: see below for more details. We will run our workshop in whenever and whatever the future might turn out to be, but in the meantime, our related project A Bit Lit has begun a new film series on wrestling, … Continue reading Ruff Play with Shakespeare: a new video series
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Ruff Play with Shakespeare: combat, gender and entertainment
Wrestling Resurgence, @RobBrazierPhoto To book, please click here. Before Shakespeare and Engendering the Stage are delighted to announce our next performance workshop, focusing on combat as entertainment—in both Shakespeare’s time and today. Combat, acrobatics and feats of strength were everywhere in the early modern period: wrestling happened on the streets, in the countryside and in plays … Continue reading Ruff Play with Shakespeare: combat, gender and entertainment
Christmas, Newyeares tyde: A summary of works done and attendance given, 2018
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, & … Continue reading Christmas, Newyeares tyde: A summary of works done and attendance given, 2018
The Curtain Rises: Post Match Report
On Saturday 21st, we enjoyed seeing the puffed-up knight Huanebango being struck down by a disembodied voice, entering a sixteenth-century smoking area, meeting the cosmopolitan neighbours of 1580s Shoreditch, and learning how to use a sword and buckler... Here at Before Shakespeare we’ve already hit the bar. Here is a love jug, a fear god … Continue reading The Curtain Rises: Post Match Report
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
The First Blackfriars Playhouse 1576-84: Ownership, Repertoire, Audience
On the 18th February, Before Shakespeare and The Dolphin's Back will return Elizabethan drama to the site of the First (and Second) Blackfriars Playhouse(s). We are hosting a workshop in the Apothecaries' Hall, built on what was formerly part of the Blackfriars complex that housed the two different playhouses (where we'll focus on the First … Continue reading The First Blackfriars Playhouse 1576-84: Ownership, Repertoire, Audience
Audiences, Immigration and Belonging in Elizabethan Theatres: Putting the archive into performance
Who visited the Elizabethan playhouses? What did it mean to have non-English characters being played on stage? What does dramatic engagement with issues of immigration, identity, and belonging tell us about sixteenth-century theatre? Earlier this month we tackled these questions at a collaborative workshop hosted by TIDE project, Before Shakespeare and the Dolphin’s Back. This … Continue reading Audiences, Immigration and Belonging in Elizabethan Theatres: Putting the archive into performance
Audiences, Immigration, and Belonging: Strangers in Finsbury
On the 19th November 2017, the TIDE project and Before Shakespeare are hosting a workshop exploring the diverse audiences of Elizabethan playhouses and their surrounding neighbourhoods, based at the University of Liverpool’s London campus, 33 Finsbury Square. Working with The Dolphin’s Back, we will be looking at a range of plays, archival documents, diaries, and … Continue reading Audiences, Immigration, and Belonging: Strangers in Finsbury
The Woman in the Moon onstage
John Lyly was the foremost literary figure during a period that saw the first permanent commercial theatres built in London. As Shakespeare's best-selling and most famous literary contemporary, it is crazy to think that the 2017 Dolphin's Back production in the Wanamaker will be the first time Lyly has appeared in a UK professional playhouse … Continue reading The Woman in the Moon onstage
The Three Ladies of London and Red Lion workshop, 22 January 2017
Our first workshop with The Dolphin's Back took place yesterday (22 January 2017), exploring the earliest surviving play from English commercial theatre on the site of the earliest purpose-built commercial playhouse. Exactly 450 years after John Brayne sought to "frame, make, or build and set up . . . within the court or yard lying on … Continue reading The Three Ladies of London and Red Lion workshop, 22 January 2017
Before Shakespeare 