A new series of free monthly events will enable academics, students and the public to make new discoveries about Renaissance drama.
The Paper Stage, launching on Monday 19 May and to be held at the Gulbenkian on the University’s Canterbury campus, encourages students and members of the public to participate in experimental and interactive readings of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, first performed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Attendees to the events will have the opportunity to read parts from the plays and use their vocal qualities to help other members in the audience gain new insight into them.
The Paper Stage series is part of a research project led by Dr Harry Newman, lecturer in the School of English, who is exploring how the public understand and engage with drama.
Dr Newman, Lecturer in Early Modern Literature, said: ‘This is a great opportunity for us to work with members of the public. Communal reading can tell us so much about Renaissance drama that is inevitably hidden from the silent and solitary reader.The Paper Stage, for example, will allow people to experience first-hand the rhythm of iambic pentameter and shifts between verse and prose, and to learn about the relationship between speech and characterisation.’
Featuring a selection of familiar plays, the series will also involve readings of lesser-known ones, from bawdy city comedies to bloody revenge tragedies, by dramatists such as Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Middleton.
It is hoped participants’ experiences of plays they have never read or are unfamiliar with will encourage them to seek out performances of these plays at theatres in Canterbury and beyond.
Designed to be accessible to all, each event invites attendees to put themselves forward to be cast as a reader in advance of the scheduled event. Prior performance experience is not required. Audience members who do not wish to read aloud are also welcome. Students, particularly those who might be studying Renaissance plays at GCSE or A-level, are also encouraged to attend.
The first reading, of Romeo and Juliet, will take place at the Gulbenkian Café on Monday 19 May at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public. Anyone interested in reading a part should email h.r.newman@kent.ac.uk. Tickets for the event can be booked on 01227 769075.