We are immensely proud of Emma Rose Kraus’ latest publication on early modern rope dancing.
Edited by Amrita Sen and Jennifer Linhart Wood, Early Modern Performance Beyond the Public Stage: Extra-Theatrical Forms and Spaces (2025) is a new academic anthology available through Bloomsbury Arden. Described as ‘the first major work to explore and analyse the popular “extra-theatrical” performances in late medieval and Renaissance England’, the volume includes a range of contributions examining forms of entertainment that fall outside the remit of commercial drama. In her chapter, ‘“Under pretense of rope dancing”: Headlining Performances at the Interregnum Red Bull’, MEMS Ph.D. student, Emma Rose Kraus, gives focus to an oft-overlooked period in English theatre history, when the monarchy was abolished and public playing made illegal. A time that led many London playhouses to shut their doors, Kraus considers how one venue, the Clerkenwell Red Bull, managed to maintain an audience during the Interregnum by shifting to variety acts. In particular, she examines the role that rope dancing might have played in these performances and their success, specifically drawing on extant news articles and advertisements to argue the high rope act as their primary headliner.
Check out the publication at Bloomsbury here.