Accessing the Records of Early English Drama in Norwich, 1540-1642

At the heart of the proposed research project are the interactions between a local community and its civic institutions, and a wide variety of drama and festivities - interactions that took place when such entertainments were first produced in the streets, inn-yards, and halls of early modern Norwich, and those that continue to take place in the twenty-first century, as both academic and non-specialist audiences are provided with a means to access and engage with the archives of the city's rich and important dramatic heritage.

The project centres on the production of a new scholarly edition of the archival records of drama, music, festivity, entertainments, masques, and pageantry performed in Norwich between 1540-1642. The second city of the kingdom throughout this period, Norwich boasted a tremendously wide-ranging tradition of civic drama produced by schoolmasters of the city's grammar school, the city corporation, and small troupes supported by the county nobility. It was also a popular stop for itinerant London-based playing companies. My research brings together in one volume the records of all this activity, including details of performers, musicians, playing spaces, civic participation and regulation, local patronage, and monies made and spent. It also provides annotated texts of plays and entertainments written for performance in the city during the early modern period, including new editions of those produced for Elizabeth I's 1578 East Anglian progress - one of the first moments at which the figure of the virgin queen was used in Elizabethan mythography - and those of a play written by Ralph Knevet for a one-off performance at the Norwich Florists' Feast in 1631.

The volume will be published in the Records of Early English Drama (REED) series, in both hard-copy and green open access, and it revises and greatly expands upon the first - now out of print - edition of these records, edited by David Galloway back in the early 1980s. (Details of the scope of my revised volume are set out in the Case for Support.) The published research will itself serve as an archive of sorts providing all subsequent scholars with interests in early modern literature, festive culture, civic administration, and social history with a valuable annotated collection of primary documentation. The revised introduction to the volume will also provide an up-to-date critical discussion of the impact of the Reformation on drama and traditional entertainments using Norwich and its environs as a detailed exemplar.

My research project will not only make these documents more accessible for scholars, but it actively encourages the records to be used by the broadest range of non-academic audiences and readers. To this end, it involves the creation of an educational pack for primary and secondary schools all about Elizabeth I's 1578 visit to Norwich and East Anglia. The pack, and accompanying logbook, will be produced by the PI in collaboration with the Forum Trust based at the Millennium Library, Norwich, and draws out the different narratives and moments of performance that are described or alluded to in both literary and administrative documentary sources now located in the Norfolk county record office and in other repositories, including the National Archives. The project as a whole thus offers an innovative demonstration of how Norwich's early modern civic drama can be accessed by new audiences.

Finally, and most significantly, the project will serve as a case-study that can be consulted and applied beyond the immediate East Anglian context illustrating how recondite archival sources traditionally perceived as being restricted or inaccessible can be used in a non-specialist educational setting. It tracks how early English drama moves from the city's streets and original playing places, via the archive and scrupulously edited scholarly edition, to the university seminar or school classroom, and out into the local community once again.

As this project's title suggests, the underlying principles of my research are that the records of early English drama in Norwich should be made accessible to a wide-ranging audience, and that academic and non-specialist audiences alike are offered a clear, well-structured framework for drawing out the many different stories and points of interest contained therein. Impact is not simply an additional activity bolted onto the editorial research project, it is an integral aspect of the project's design. The project was conceived as a best practice case-study of how academic research involving local archives can be transformed by the application of an innovative impact strategy designed to bring its new research findings to audiences beyond the academic community.

My revised edition of the records will be published both in hard copy and in a free, open access online source hosted by archive.org and maintained by REED headquarters at Toronto. Since the online records are freely available to the public, not just the academic beneficiaries identified above, the fruits of my research will be shared with a far broader audience and these can be read and used by anyone interested in early modern Norwich and East Anglia, the history of drama and the performing arts, and the organisation and administration of public ceremonies and festivities in Tudor and Stuart England.
I've built a programme of public-facing initiatives, activities and events into the project itself to ensure that groups and individuals outside of the academic research community benefit from my research:

1. In collaboration with the Forum Trust, Norwich (theforumnorwich.co.uk), I will design an educational pack for primary and secondary schools focused on archival records of Elizabeth I's 1578 East Anglian progress. During the initial implementation of the pack, my research will have an educational impact upon c.600 pupils. (See Letters of support from the Forum trust and two of the target schools regarding how my research benefits them.) Schools and pupils will benefit from the research that informs the pack through the way in which it uses episodes from Elizabeth's week-long visit to Norwich, and different kinds of original archival texts, as the stimulus for analytical and creative activities (including drama) keyed to core subjects and skills taught in the National Curriculum. In concert with the Forum Trust I'll establish a communication strategy to ensure that information about this innovative educational initiative is disseminated in the local media and in an article for the Times Educational Supplement.

2. The project's RA and I will present public talks about our research on the records, and about the implementation of the educational pack, at events held at the Millennium Library, Castle Museum, and Guildhall in Norwich.

3. At the end of the project I will host a workshop at which findings of the research will be presented to the public, and at which representatives from schools involved in working with the educational pack connected with the project can provide feedback about its implementation and wider application. Part of the workshop will be filmed so that findings of the project can be shared with other schools, heritage groups, REED editors, and interested academic audiences. Feedback from this event will inform an article for open access, peer-reviewed journal 'Early Theatre' that critically examines relationships between the archival research and public-facing leadership and impact activities. This article speaks to academic and non-academic audiences alike, and shows how my project serves as a best practice case-study with applications that go beyond its immediate geographic and thematic focus.