The Dolphin’s Back

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.

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.

During rehearsals for James Wallace’s The Dolphin’s Back production of John Lyly’s The Woman in the Moon (Shakespeare's Globe, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) back in August 2017, we had time to catch up with a few of the cast members and ask them how it felt to play gods, Nature, men, and women on the Sam Wanamaker stage in pre-1590s drama.

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?

Our conference is coming up later this month, and we’re looking forward to the range and diversity of papers, conversations, and performance work that will be descending upon South West London in what we’re all confident will be a rare weekend of British Bank Holiday sun.

The Before Shakespeare project held its first Advisory Board meeting earlier this month.