Diverse alarums: centering marginalised communities in the contemporary performance of early modern plays
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Roehampton
Department Name: School of Humanities
Abstract
Perhaps the most frequent stage direction in all early modern drama is 'diverse alarums', which means something like 'Could everyone onstage and backstage please make as much noise as possible?' The disproportionate representation of William Shakespeare in scholarship and performance has aligned early modern drama in the public mind with white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives, but early modern drama has been calling for diverse alarums all along.
This project challenges this normative trend in 'classical' theatre by mounting a large-scale production of John Lyly's Galatea, an early modern play centered around female, trans, queer, disabled and migrant life stories, and featuring almost no adult cisgender men. In doing so, we seek to bring the play to wide ranging and diverse audiences and experiment with novel ways of foregrounding historical narratives to tell stories that resonate with current socio-political issues. At a time when Shakespeare dominates classical theatre, we seek to permanently reintroduce a forgotten play to the contemporary canon, and thereby challenge the canon's remit in the process.
John Lyly's Galatea is an extraordinarily important early modern English play It offers contemporary performers and audiences an unparalleled affirmative and intersectional demographic, exploring feminist, queer, transgender and migrant lives in a cast of characters that includes very few cisgender adult males, and it builds towards the celebration of a queer and trans marriage. Yet the play has almost no stage history since 1588, and is only starting to be better known amongst academics and students. Diverse Alarums will transform this state of affairs with a unique combination of methods, ranging across early modern studies, practice-as-research, audience studies, qualitative research, trans, queer and disability studies.
The project comes out of several years of collaboration and grant-capture between the project Principal Investigator, Andy Kesson (Roehampton), and the theatremaker Emma Frankland, which has demonstrated the viability of our work to shift debates around equity and inclusion in both classical and contemporary theatre. It will be staged in collaboration with Marlborough Productions, WildWorks and Brighton Festival, with the PI working with Co-Investigator, Sandra Nelson (Sussex), and the Post-Doctoral Research Assistant as creative partners for the production and lead researchers for the project.
This project challenges this normative trend in 'classical' theatre by mounting a large-scale production of John Lyly's Galatea, an early modern play centered around female, trans, queer, disabled and migrant life stories, and featuring almost no adult cisgender men. In doing so, we seek to bring the play to wide ranging and diverse audiences and experiment with novel ways of foregrounding historical narratives to tell stories that resonate with current socio-political issues. At a time when Shakespeare dominates classical theatre, we seek to permanently reintroduce a forgotten play to the contemporary canon, and thereby challenge the canon's remit in the process.
John Lyly's Galatea is an extraordinarily important early modern English play It offers contemporary performers and audiences an unparalleled affirmative and intersectional demographic, exploring feminist, queer, transgender and migrant lives in a cast of characters that includes very few cisgender adult males, and it builds towards the celebration of a queer and trans marriage. Yet the play has almost no stage history since 1588, and is only starting to be better known amongst academics and students. Diverse Alarums will transform this state of affairs with a unique combination of methods, ranging across early modern studies, practice-as-research, audience studies, qualitative research, trans, queer and disability studies.
The project comes out of several years of collaboration and grant-capture between the project Principal Investigator, Andy Kesson (Roehampton), and the theatremaker Emma Frankland, which has demonstrated the viability of our work to shift debates around equity and inclusion in both classical and contemporary theatre. It will be staged in collaboration with Marlborough Productions, WildWorks and Brighton Festival, with the PI working with Co-Investigator, Sandra Nelson (Sussex), and the Post-Doctoral Research Assistant as creative partners for the production and lead researchers for the project.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Andy Kesson (Principal Investigator) | |
| Sandra Nelson (Co-Investigator) |
| Title | Galatea |
| Description | Production of John Lyly's Galatea |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | This was a large-scale, outdoor production of a forgotten early modern play, staged with performers, technicians and producers traditionally marginalised from such work on the basis of their identity. We worked with a company of nearly 100 queer, transgender, disabled and Global Majority artists to deliver an ambitious production of Galatea for Brighton Festival. Impacts included: the celebration and centering of traditionally marginalised artists; sold-out shows in front of thousands of audience members, who provided testimony on the inclusive impact of our work; the demonstration of the viability of radically inclusive and equitable models of collaboration and co-creation; the co-creation of artists and researchers on both historical and brand-new, innovative modes of creativity. |
| URL | https://www.galateaproject.org |
| Description | Before Shakespeare has broken new ground in scholarly understanding of and public knowledge of London's early modern theatres, in particular their range, diversity and vibrancy, and forged a new interest in the decades before Shakespeare was active. Working with Museum of London Archaeology and a wide range of theatre companies, we have brought together an innovative combination of archival, literary and theatrical research with contemporary performance and the latest archaeological discoveries. |
| Exploitation Route | This funding has already been taken forward by others. The art historian Alixe Bovey, the theatre practitioner Emma Frankland, the archaeologists Heather Knight and Hannah O'Regan, the National Archives and two major research projects, Box Office Bears and Diverse Alarums, have all used Before Shakespeare as a collaborative and interdisciplinary model or research resource to create new research, education packs and creative work. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy Education Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://beforeshakespeare.com |
| Description | Our research has been used across a wide range of theatrical productions: Emma Frankland's Galatea, the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of Dr Faustus and The Duchess of Malfi, 1623's production of BARDCORE. Our research centered marginalised identities and has been used to explore past and contemporary d/Deaf and disabled, queer, transgender and Global Majority experience. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
| Sector | Creative Economy |
| Impact Types | Cultural |