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  • Episode 174:


    Ben Jonson's erliest play. Here we have the bricklayer’s son trying to make his way in the theatre and with the court.  Until James came to the throne, he was pretty unsuccessful in the latter and as far as we can tell more of less from the off his life writing for the public theatre was controversial.  I recounted the events surrounding Johnson and Nashe’s play ‘The Isle of Dogs’ as part of Jonson’s life story and ‘The Case Is Altered’ probably pre-dates those events.  What we can be sure of is that by 1597, the most likely date for ‘The Case Is Altered’ Jonson was working for Pembroke’s Men and that they probably performed the play in May or June that year.


    The complications of the printing history of the play

    The origins of the title

    Jonson borrows from Plautus to create a romantic comedy

    The satire of Anthony Munday

    A brief summary of both strands of the plot

    The structural issues with the play and purely comic scenes

    The theory of the Humors

    The character of Count Ferneze

    The character of Jacques the miser

    The concealment of the gold

    The slight characters of the three female roles


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  • Episode 173:


    For this guest episode it is a very welcome return for Eleanor Conlon, who you will remember discussed Titus Andronicus with me in Episode 22 of this season.  Having picked over the brutal actions of that play with Eleanor I was pleased to hear that she was interested in a return visit and to discuss the very different piece that is Love’s Labour’s Lost.  As you will her Eleanor has a great love of this play and brings all the enthusiasm about it to our conversation that you as might expect.  If you have not already done so I would recommend listening to my previous episode on Love’s Labour’s Lost before starting on this one, which adds a lot to what I said in that episode.


    Eleanor Conlon is an actor, director, and award-winning writer based in Sussex.


    After completing her BA in English Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, Eleanor earned her MA in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at Kings College and Shakespeare’s Globe. While at The Globe, Eleanor worked dramaturgically on productions by Dominic Dromgoole, Matthew Dunster, and Jeremy Herrin, and with Jenny Tiramani on the Original Practices Costume Archive.


    As an academic, her research focused on Renaissance Magic, Gender and Culture in Early Modern London, though for more than a decade her career has been less theoretical and more practical.  After achieving success with her theatre company ‘The Barefoot Players’ in the late 2000s and early 2010s, with which she produced plays including ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’, ‘Doctor Faustus’ and ‘The Alchemist’, the latter two of which she also directed, as well as productions of several of Shakespeare’s works, plays by Ibsen, Oscar Wilde, and others.  She founded her current theatre company ‘Rust & Stardust’ where working with her puppet-maker partner Katie Sommers Eleanor has written over a dozen plays rooted in English folklore and toured these shows all over the UK.


    In addition to all this, and as you are about to hear, in 2023 she launched the Three Ravens Podcast with her partner Martin Vaux – also a writer and actor – which explores history, legends, and diverse aspects of folk culture.


    Link to Three Ravens Podcast website: www.threeravenspodcast.com


    For the Three Ravens Folktales Book:

    Link to Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Ravens-Folk-Tales-half-forgotten/dp/1803999683


    Link To Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Ravens-Folk-Tales-half-forgotten-ebook/dp/B0CW1GB63M/ref=sr_1_1


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

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  • Episode 172:


    The dating of the play

    The early publication history of the play

    The sources for the play

    A synopsis of the play

    A play that explores language and it’s limits

    The opening scene

    Constable Dull

    The central ‘reveal’ scene and it’s poetry

    The character and behaviour of Costard

    The longest word in the Shakespeare cannon

    The pageant of the nine worthies

    The character of Jacquenetta

    Shakespeare’s parody and homage to previous literary forms

    The meaning of the title of the play

    The concept of ‘the academy’ and comparisons with Elizabeth’s court

    The critical reception of the play

    The performance history of the play


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

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  • Episode 171: 


    For today’s guest episode it is a warm welcome to Stephen Watkins who is going to take us a little way forward in the timeline to the world of Restoration England where after fourteen years of closures theatres were again legally opened and where, as we shall hear, performance of Shakespeare plays formed a significant part of the repertoire, and this discussion does focus very much on Shakespeare in the Restoration, we will, of course, get to a look at the other playwrights and players of that period all in good time.


    Stephen Watkins is a writer and researcher working mainly on Shakespeare and Early Modern literature, with a particular focus on how writers and theatre makers recycle, adapt and remediate source texts to both register and resist historical and cultural change.  He has published widely on Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare and the important figure of that time, William Davenant.  His book ‘Shakespeare and the Restoration Repertory’, as part of the Cambridge University Press, ‘Elements in Shakespeare Performance’ series was published in February 2025. In it Stephen demonstrates how Davenant’s adaptations of Shakespeare were shaped as much by the transformed commercial and repertorial logics that came to govern the patent companies in the 1660s as they were by shifting aesthetic and political concerns in the period. Stephen has taught English at the Universities of Oxford, Nottingham, and Derby, and is currently based at the University of Greenwich.


    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare-Restoration-Repertory-Elements-Performance/dp/1009324136/ref=sr_1_1?

    https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Restoration-Repertory-Elements-Performance-ebook/dp/B0F29S1NJ1/ref=sr_1_1?


    Support the podcast at:

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  • Episode 170: 


    The dating of the play

    The tradition of the queen Elizabeth commission

    The tradition of the connection to the Garter Ceremony

    The Question of who played Falstaff

    A summary of the plot

    The early publication history of the play in short quarto editions

    The sources for the play

    The very specific location of the play

    The character of Falstaff

    The way the dominating prose of the play is used to define characters

    The change in Mistress Quickly and her use of language

    The stereotypical comedy of foreigners in Dr Caius and Parson Evans

    Was the play written for one audience, but then changed to fit another?

    The play as a city comedy and how Shakespeare subverts the genre

    The influence of Queen Elizabeth’s position as a female ruler on the play

    The later performance history of the play


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

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  • Episode 169


    A welcome return for Kyle Thomas to the podcast where we discussed Kyle’s work on preparing three of the York Cycle plays for performance this summer in Toronto.  As you will hear Kyle is part of a team that are going to perform the fifty-play cycle on the 7th June 2025 in the grounds of the University of Toronto.


    Link to the York Cycle Plays performed at Toronto University in June 2025: https://www.yorkplays.ca


    Link to Kyle’s projects:

    Ensemble Member: Stage Left Theatre

    Reviewer for ChicagoOnStage.com

    Chief Editor of ROMARD: Research on Medieval and Renaissance Drama

    Featured Expert on Mysteries of the Abandoned: Hidden America (Discovery Channel)

    Lead Author of The Play About the Antichrist (Ludus de Antichristo): A Dramaturgical Analysis, Historical Commentary, and Latin Edition with a New English Verse Translation


    Link to my blog post about the Valenciennes Illustration https://www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com/blog/the-stage-set-from-valenciennes-1547/


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  • Episode 168:


    Although Shakespeare's completion of the events of Henry IV’s reign is very much a continuation of the story from part one it is a play with a very different vibe.  The vigour of the battle scenes and the exuberance of prince Hal and Falstaff’s relationship are replaced in part two with a more sombre and elegiac tone.  The effects of old age and the passing to time hang over the play and even at its ending, where the coronation of Henry V could have been treated as a big party full of hope, it is the final rejection of Falstaff that dominates as once again Shakespeare provides an ending that many would have found surprising.


    The dating of the play

    The early publishing history of the play

    The early performance history of the play

    Shakespeare’s sources for the play

    A Synopsis of the plot

    How the play functions without much dramatic action

    Was the play a hurriedly written sequel?

    Foreshadowing and references to history

    The presence of the king and his illness in the play

    The nature of the comedy in the play

    The final split with Falstaff

    Falstaff the dangerous conman

    The Justices Shallow and Silence

    Mistress Quickly and the other comic characters

    The Epilogue


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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  • Episode 167


    A conversation with Kyle Thomas where we discussed the long transition period between Roman theatre and medieval theatre.  As you may remember from my episodes on the medieval theatre this is a very opaque period where details are few and far between.  In my episodes in season three of the podcast I mostly followed the view that medieval theatre grew out of parts of the church liturgy that became dramatized as very simple, short plays.  As you will hear in our conversation Kyle puts a more nuanced perspective on that and also speaks to the role of the education system of the time in that process.


    Links to Kyle’s projects:

    Ensemble Member: Stage Left Theatre

    Reviewer for ChicagoOnStage.com

    Chief Editor of ROMARD: Research on Medieval and Renaissance Drama

    Featured Expert on Mysteries of the Abandoned: Hidden America (Discovery Channel)

    Lead Author of The Play About the Antichrist (Ludus de Antichristo): A Dramaturgical Analysis, Historical Commentary, and Latin Edition with a New English Verse Translation


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

    www.ko-fi.com/thoetp

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  • Episode 166:


    As with 'Richard II' 'Henry IV part 1' handles some complex English history as it examines the relationships between the King, his son and the powerful Percy family.  After the deposition of Richard II Henry ruled for fourteen years until his death. Having ended 'Richard II' with Henry’s accession to the throne and Richard’s death in prison Shakespeare opens this play just a few years later, but with a vision of a tired king and a country dissatisfied with his rule.  


    The setting for the play

    A brief synopsis of the play

    The dating of the play

    The early performance history of the play

    The publication history of the play

    The sources for the play

    The balance of history and comedy

    The historical accuracy of the play

    The play as an examination of the father/son relationship

    The character of Hotspur as a medieval knight

    The portrayal of Glendower as a mystic leader

    The role of the aristocratic ladies

    Prince Hal as a new sort of leader

    Falstaff, ruler of his own sort of court and a king of everyman

    The historical figure of Sir John Oldcastle

    The later performance history of the play


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

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  • Episode 165


    In today’s guest episode it is a very welcome return to the podcast for Darren Freebury-Jones.  Darren appeared previously to discuss his book ‘Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers’ and I asked him back on this occasion because his earlier book ‘Shakespeare’s Tutor: The Influence of Thomas Kyd’ is now published in a paperback edition by Manchester University Press, making it a much more accessible resource for any enthusiast of early modern theatre.  In our conversation about the book Darren mentions a few points, like the detail of verse structure and characters like Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe that we discussed in more detail in our earlier encounter.  If you would like to listen to that again it is still out there on the podcast feed as episode 126, that’s season six episode thirteen.


    Dr Darren Freebury-Jones is author of the monographs: Reading Robert Greene: Recovering Shakespeare’s Rival, Shakespeare’s Tutor: The Influence of Thomas Kyd, and Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers.  He is also Associate Editor for the first critical edition of The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd since 1901.  He has investigated the boundaries of John Marston’s dramatic corpus as part of the Oxford Marston project and is General Editor for The Collected Plays of Robert Greene, also published by Edinburgh University Press. His findings on the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries have been discussed in national newspapers such as The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Observer, and The Independent as well as BBC Radio.  His debut poetry collection, Rambling, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2024. In 2023 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of his contributions to historical scholarship.


    Amazon UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeares-Tutor-Influence-Thomas-Kyd/dp/1526182610/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0


    Amazon US Link: https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeares-tutor-influence-Thomas-Kyd/dp/1526182610/ref=sr_1_1?


    Manchester Universty Press link: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526182616/


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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  • Episode 164


    Fate, as in Romeo and Juliet, plays a large part in ‘The Merchant of Venice’, as do deep seated grudges, but these are more societal than familial.  We are still in Italy, but no longer in close knit Verona, but mercantile and outward looking Venice.  As Shakespeare wrote this play London was becoming orientated around increasing global trade and English trading ships were regularly making their way to Venice as a major trading hub, so perhaps it is no surprise that Venice, with its eyes on commerce and profit, was a suitably exotic setting for this tale of greed, love and a clash of cultures. 


    The dating of the play

    The printed history of the play

    The sources of the play including earlier theatrical ‘Jew’ plays

    A brief outline of the plot

    The different views of the character of Shylock – stereotype or sympathetic

    The Jewish experience in Elizabethan London

    The comic elements of the play

    The character of Antonio

    Portia’s role in the play

    Portia’s ‘mercy’ speech

    The performance history of the play 


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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  • Episode 163


    My background reading while preparing the episode on Romeo and Juliet took me to many stories about and thoughts on the afterlife of the play and its continuing influence on western culture, what follows is just a few stories and thoughts that illustrate that continuing influence.


    Verona and Juliet’s Statue

    Juliet’s tomb

    Cibber’s Juliet

    Franco Zeffirelli’s film for the ‘love generation’

    West Side Story



    Support the podcast at:

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  • Episode 162


    In today’s episode I look at Shakespeare’s early tragedy and one of his enduringly popular plays ‘Romeo and Juliet’.


    The dating of the play

    The early printings of the play in quarto editions

    The origins of the story and Shakespeare’s direct sources

    The opening chorus

    Violence and the hand of fate underlying the action

    The opening brawl and the threat of violence to women

    The calming voice of women in the play

    Romeo as a Petrarchan hero

    Juliet as an innovative character who drives the plot

    Romeo and Juliet’s shared sonnet

    The motivations of Friar Lawrence and Juliet’s nurse

    A brief performance history of the play



    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

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  • Episode 161


    In today’s guest episode I will be discussing Shakespeare’s characterisations of the lower classes and looking at the role they play with Stephen Unwin, who’s book ‘Poor Naked Wretches’ explores the variety of working people in Shakespeare's plays as well as a vast range of cultural sources from which they were drawn and argues that the robust realism of these characters makes them so much more than mere Comic Relief. 


    Stephen Unwin is an award-winning British theatre and opera director.  He has directed almost 100 professional productions and worked with many well-established actors and singers, as well as developing the careers of many younger ones.  He studied at the University of Cambridge.


    In the 1980s Stephen worked at the Almeida Theatre, London, the Traverse in Edinburgh, in repertoire theatre and at the National Theatre Studio.  In 1993, he founded English Touring Theatre, for whom he directed more than 30 productions of classical and new plays, many of which transferred to London.  In 2008, he became Artistic Director of the new Rose Theatre in Kingston, which he ran until January 2014.  He has worked extensively at the Theatre Royal Bath and has directed more than 20 operas.  Ten of his productions have been seen in the West End.


    Stephen has taught in conservatoires and universities in Britain and America and written 10 books on theatre and drama, including ‘Poor Naked Wretches’. He has also written five original plays: ‘All Our Children’ was premiered at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2017 and staged in New York in 2019, and ‘Laughing Boy’ opened at Jermyn Street in 2024 and also played at the Theatre Royal Bath. 


    Stephen is a campaigner for the rights and dignities of learning-disabled people and ‘Beautiful Lives: How We Got Learning Disabilities So Wrong’, is published by Wildfire Book in June 2025.


    This is only a shortened version of Stephen’s achievements and I would encourage you to visit his website for much more information.  

    You can find him at www.stephenunwin.uk 


    https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/poor-naked-wretches


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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  • Episode 160


    A synopsis of the play

    The sources and dating of the play

    The problems with a historical drama in verse

    The historical accuracy of the play

    King John as neither a hero nor anti-hero

    Philip the bastard as a central character in the play

    The theme of self-identity and changing fortune in the play

    Blanche as a representation of innocence manipulated

    Queen Eleanor as the power behind the throne

    Constance in grief and, maybe, madness, but eloquent

    Movement towards the personal in the second half of the play

    The confusion over the character of Hubert

    The fate of the king as a metaphor for England

    The performance history of the play


    Link to the silent film from 1899 of the death of king John

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lWn99STB1o


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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  • Episode 159


    For today’s guest episode we are going back to the Italian renaissance theatre and the world of the Commedia Dell’arte.  You will remember that I covered the Commedia and other early Italian theatre in season five of the podcast, but in this conversation with Serena Laiena we have much more detail about a particular theatrical couple and the world of 16thcentury Italian theatre.  In her book ‘The Theatre Couple in Early Modern Italy: Self-Fashioning and Mutual Marketing’ Serena looks at the birth of a phenomenon, that of the couple in show business where she focuses on the mutually beneficial promotional strategies devised by two professional performers and husband and wife team, Giovan Battista Andreini and Virginia Ramponi.


    Serena Laiena is Assistant Professor in Italian and Ad Astra Fellow at University College Dublin. Her research focuses on early modern Italian theatre, especially commedia dell’arte. Most of her time is devoted to the understanding of the social and cultural role of the first professional actresses in modern history.  The award-winning monograph that is the basis of our discussion today was published in 2023 by the University of Delaware Press.  Currently, she is working on a book-length project focusing on the correspondence by and about professional actresses to bring to light the managing roles they performed within theatre companies.


    For more details on Serena's book:


    UK link to Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Theatre-Couple-Early-Modern-Italy-ebook/dp/B0C9F9T6RX/ref=sr_1_1?


    US link to Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Theatre-Couple-Early-Modern-Italy/dp/1644533154/ref=sr_1_1?


    Link to publisher's website: https://udpress.udel.edu/book-title/the-theatre-couple-in-early-modern-italy-self-fashioning-and-mutual-marketing/


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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  • Episode 158


    Picking up the journey through Shakespeare's plays with 'Richard II'


    A brief summary of the play

    The early performance history of the play

    The early print history of the play

    The variations in the quarto editions concerning the deposition scene

    The sources for the play

    The role of the play in the Essex rebellion

    The historical accuracy of the play

    The dramatic arcs travelled by Richard and Bolingbroke

    The political represented in the personal through the female roles

    The significant role of minor characters

    How verse is used in the play to distinguish the noble characters

    The question of the divine right of kings and how it affects Richard’s character

    The end of the play, Bolingbroke’s regrets, and how we might feel about them

    The later performance history of the play


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

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  • In the fifth part of this short series of guest episodes before we get back to continuing the journey through the Shakespeare and Jonson cannon I had the chance to speak with Dr Ian McCormick about the collection of essays he edited, which pulls together recent Shakespeare criticism in the framework of woke and anti-woke culture and the culture wars of recent years.  It is a wide ranging and thought provoking collection. 


    Ian McCormick, was a Professor in the Department of English for the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Northampton, where he taught Shakespeare, Renaissance Literature, 18th-century Literature, and Literary Theory. He has edited and contributed to books in various fields including sexuality and gender studies; modern and postmodern literature; teaching and learning strategies; drama education and critical theory.  He has contributed to many academic publications, written a novel inspired by 18th century epistolatory novels and in the past he has organized two major international conferences for the British Society for Eighteenth-century Studies, at St John's College (University of Oxford).  For the full details of Ian's biography please see the guest page on the podcast website.


    Links to 'Woke Shakespeare':

    Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Woke-Shakespeare-Rethinking-New-Era/dp/B0DQYB2TS5/ref=sr_1_1?

    Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Shakespeare-Rethinking-New-Era/dp/B0DQYB2TS5/ref=sr_1_1?


    If you are interested in being considered to make a contribution to the next volume ‘Shakespeare: New Voices’, you have until the 30th June 2025 to make an application via the Penn State University call for papers page, where some details of the requirements are explained https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/05/18/shakespeare-new-voices


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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  • In the fourth part of this short series of guest episodes before we get back to continuing the journey through the Shakespeare and Jonson cannon today’s episode is a repeat of episode 32 of the podcast, first released in late 2020.  Having just produced an episode on satyr play on the main podcast and another on the papyologists who rediscovered the play Trackers for the fledgling Patreon account I was very pleased to be able to talk to theatre director Jimmy Walters who have produced a revival of the play The Trackers of Oxyrhincus by Tony Harrison.  To hear from first-hand experience what it was like to produce a modern adaptation of a Greek play, especially something as rare as the satyr play was a real treat.   It is, I think, worthy of another listen if you heard it at the time, or a first listen if you have only joined us for the later theatrical periods.


    Jimmy Walters has been a professional actor and then director for almost twenty years. In his directing career he has presented work at most of London’s most prestigious off-west end venues, including the Finborough Theatre, Southwark Playhouse and the Jermyn Street Theatre and at other venues around the UK.  Since 2022 he has been Education Practitioner for Shakespeare’s Globe leading Shakespeare workshops onsite for children of all ages.


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

    www.patreon.com/thoetp

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  • In the third part of this series of guest episodes before we get back to continuing the journey through the Shakespeare and Jonson cannon, we are going deep into the world of the renaissance period boy actors, or perhaps, as they should more properly be called, apprentice players.  The habit of the period of young actors playing female roles is well known, but when I had the chance to talk to Roberta Barker about her study of apprentice players it soon became very clear that there is a lot more to their position in the playing company than that and we get to meet some of them as personalities in their own right.


    Roberta Barker is a member of the Joint Faculty of King’s College, London, where she is Professor of Theatre teaching in the Foundation Year and Early Modern Studies programs, and Dalhousie University, Halifax Nova Scotia, where she teaches Theatre in the Fountain School of Performing Arts. Her research interests centre upon the relationship between performance and the social construction of identity and has explored such topics as the representation of gender and class in early modern tragedy, the early modern careers and modern afterlives of Shakespeare’s boy players, and (most recently) the role played by the performance of illness on the nineteenth-century stage in the evolution of realist style. She is also a theatre and opera director.


    Support the podcast at:

    www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com

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