Galatea (c.1584) enjoyed some more research and development with actors in August 2021, as it heads towards a production in collaboration with Wildworks, when director Emma Frankland gathered theatremakers at the 101 Outdoor Creation Space (thanks to their seed funding). This post brings together a series of A Bit Lit videos with performers to discuss … Continue reading Galatea 101: Performing John Lyly in the 21st Century
Elizabethan
Galatea 101 #3: Bea Webster on signing early modern English and queer virgins
Bea Webster talks about the process of turning sixteenth-century English into British Sign Language and the creation of appropriate signs, the importance of a diverse rehearsal room, and what it's like playing a character about to be sacrificed... Part of the Galatea residency at 101 Outdoor Creation Space. https://www.youtube.com/embed/5NeEba3FLbE
Galatea 101 #2: Nadia Nadarajah and Brian Duffy tell us about performing Diana and directing the show
Nadia Nadarajah and Brian Duffy tell us about their experiences working on the play Galatea, including translations into British Sign Language, exploring the character of the goddess Diana, and using physical communication and visual vernacular. The work forms part of Emma Frankland's production and comes out of a residency at 101 Outdoor Creation Space in … Continue reading Galatea 101 #2: Nadia Nadarajah and Brian Duffy tell us about performing Diana and directing the show
Galatea 101 #1: Emma Frankland and Andy Kesson
This week and next, Galatea is back on its feet once more! Now heading towards a production in collaboration with Wildworks, director and theatremaker Emma Frankland has gathered theatremakers at the 101 Outdoor Creation Space (made possible thanks to their seed funding). In this A Bit Lit feature video, the first of a series of … Continue reading Galatea 101 #1: Emma Frankland and Andy Kesson
Pass Ye Remote: A Quest for Early Modern Entertainment Through Online Learning Resources
Welcome to Elizabethan England via the digital world! We're lucky to have a range of exciting and innovative online resources at our disposal that make it possible to explore the entertainment and cultural activities of early modern England through our computer screens. This post (in collaboration with Middling Culture) takes the form of "remote quest(ions)" … Continue reading Pass Ye Remote: A Quest for Early Modern Entertainment Through Online Learning Resources
The Before Shakespeare Guide to [The] Theatre Etiquette
[Come and behave (well?) with these tips in mind at our upcoming event on the Curtain playhouse at hackney House on 21 July.] Just as writers in twenty-first century New York have opinions on how other people should behave in theatre spaces, so early modern London has its fair share of advice to spectators. Whether … Continue reading The Before Shakespeare Guide to [The] Theatre Etiquette
“Fly me to the moon!”
Edward's Boys' Director, Perry Mills, introduces their latest production, in collaboration with Before Shakespeare, John Lyly's The Woman in the Moon. To read about Edward's Boys in rehearsal at our conference in August 2017, read Perry's companion piece on our site. Now that Autumn and even Winter have been and gone – although Back-Winter appears to … Continue reading “Fly me to the moon!”
Getting Mortal in St Austell: Galatea in Cornwall
We are joining Emma Frankland and her crew of artists and players for the next few days. Emma is spending this week and next week with two groups of artists to explore in more detail some of the themes and scenes of John Lyly's Galatea, building on research and development workshops from last August. The … Continue reading Getting Mortal in St Austell: Galatea in Cornwall
Venus’s Palaces
She’s got it, Yeah baby, she’s got it ---Shocking Blue For 1570s and 1580s theatregoers, love was all around. One of the defining characteristics of the earliest surviving commercial plays is the predominance of the character Venus or her allegorical equivalent, Love. “Theaters and curtaines Venus pallaces,” reads a marginal note in Philip Stubbes’s The … Continue reading Venus’s Palaces
CONFERENCE RESPONSE: Of God and Jonson: writing about new things and non-events by Mathew Lyons
I was fortunate to be able to attend some of the superb Before Shakespeare conference at Roehampton last week. I came away with a range of thoughts and ideas, some of which I hope to pursue in one form or another. Perhaps the thing that struck me most, however, was Bill Ingram’s opening talk. Ingram … Continue reading CONFERENCE RESPONSE: Of God and Jonson: writing about new things and non-events by Mathew Lyons
Before Shakespeare 