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 … Continue reading The Woman in the Moon: Interviews with the Cast
three ladies of london
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
Generic excitement
Give ear, I pray you, and mark it attentively, for you shall hear the tenor of a strange and tragical comedy. Anthony Munday, Zelauto (1580) Genre: what is it, what does it mean, and how does it organise our experiences in the theatre, in a book or in our scholarship? These are questions about stories, … Continue reading Generic excitement
Birthday Post: A Year of Before Shakespeare
We launched our website last year, on the date of Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, with an introduction to the project and something of a provocation in Andy’s post about putting the Shhhh into Shakespeare.... The comments that followed have been matched by recent posts that have engendered debate and discussion amongst readers, including the creation by … Continue reading Birthday Post: A Year of Before Shakespeare
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
“Rent must be paid, duties dischargd”: A Note on Elizabethan Landlords
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST, on THAT SHAKESPEARE LIFE For more on this subject, listen to Callan talking with Cassidy Cash on her recommended podcast series, That Shakespeare Life. While estate agents and others expressed disapproval, others will have welcomed this morning's leaked announcement from the Chancellor's Autumn Statement about announcing a crackdown on letting fees: those administration costs, credit checks, … Continue reading “Rent must be paid, duties dischargd”: A Note on Elizabethan Landlords
Before Shakespeare 