The History Of European Theatre

Dec 08 2024 185 ep. 31 mins 132
The History Of European Theatre Podcast artwork

A podcast tracing the development of theatre from ancient Greece to the present day through the places and people who made theatre happen. More than just dates and lists of plays we'll learn about the social. political and historical context that fostered the creation of dramatic art.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  History  Arts  Education
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'The Divas Gift': A Conversation With Pamela Allen Brown

Dec 08 2024 48 mins  
One of the generally accepted facts about theatre in the time of Shakespeare and Jonson is that boy actors took female roles and women were banned from appearing on the stage.  This is in fact only partly true and my guest for today’s episode has made a study of how early modern actresses, from traditions on the European continent,  influenced the English stag

The Life of Ben Jonson part Four: The Playhouse, the Court, and ‘The Masque of Blackness’

Dec 01 2024 36 mins  
Episode 146:The banning of printed satire.‘Every Man Out of His Humour’ is produced by The Lord Chamberlin’s Men.‘Cynthia’s Revels’ is performed at court but is not well received.‘Poetester’ is performed at the Blackfriars and sparks ‘the war of the poets’ with Dekker and Marston.‘Sejanus: His Fall’ fails to impress.Jonson cultivates friendships with nobilit

The Life of Ben Jonson part Three: ‘There is no Greater Hell Than to be a Prisoner of Fear’

Nov 24 2024 31 mins  
Episode 145:Continuing the story of Ben Jonson’s life from the point where just as he starts to make his mark in the theatre scene everything goes very badly wrong for him.‘The Isle of Dogs’ at the Swan TheatreThe closure of the London TheatresJonson in prisonHow the London theatres reopenedThe Swan and Pembroke’s MenSpeculation on the content of ‘The Isle of Dogs’Jonso

Shake-Scene Shakespeare: A Conversation With Lizzie Conrad-Hughes

Nov 17 2024 43 mins  
Episode 144: On several occasions through the story of the renaissance theatre I have touched on how the players made use of cue sheets rather than full scripts as they rehearsed and performed plays, so I was fascinated to see that there is a company of actors working today who produce plays by Shakespeare and other renaissance playwrights using cue sheets.  Although

The Life of Ben Jonson Part Two: He That is Taught Only by Himself Has a Fool for a Master

Nov 10 2024 33 mins  
Episode 143:The second part of the life of Ben Jonson takes him from his birth, through his years at school and onto working as a bricklayer.  He then briefly joined the army before returning to become a player, a poet and a playwright.Jonson’s Scottish ancestry.His father’s loss of position under queen Mary.His Stepfather Robert Brett, bricklayer.Life for the Brett/J

The Culture of The Shrew in Early Modern Europe: A Conversation with Dr Natalia Pikli

Nov 03 2024 34 mins  
Episode 142Dr Natália Pikli discusses the changing view of the 'The Shrew' in Medieval and Early Modern European culture and how women are represented in Shakespeare's early comedies,She then goes on to outline how Shakespeare became part of national Hungarian culture and how the plays have been treated in translation.Dr Natália Pikli is Associate Professor at the Department of E

The Life of Ben Jonson Part One: It’s Complicated

Oct 27 2024 31 mins  
Episode 141:In this episode I set us up for a look at the life of Ben Johnson discussing some of the sources for information about his life and how far we can trust them – it’s complicated.Jonson’s 1618 visit to Scotland and why he might have undertaken the journey on foot. His conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden.Jonson’s opinions on other writers as reported by

The Kings Lynn Medieval Stage: A Conversation With Tim Fitzhigham

Oct 20 2024 31 mins  
In October 2023 the story of the discovery of a stage floor that dated from before the Elizabethan period in St George’s Guildhall in Kings Lynn hit the news.  The attrition to the headline writers was the fact that that very stage had probably supported Shakespeare as he acted as part of a playing troupe on stage.  Of course, that is a great hook for the stor

The Comedy of Errors: ‘Hand in Hand, Not One Before the Other.’

Oct 13 2024 33 mins  
Episode 139:Last time ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ gave us a look at second comedy from Shakespeare’s early phase as a playwright.  As you heard certain elements in the plotting of the play and execution of its denouement make it problematic, but nevertheless it showed early promise.  The lyrical nature of much of the language used in that play is quite typic

A Knack to Know a Knave: ‘Laugh at the Faults and Weigh it as it is.’

Oct 06 2024 25 mins  
Episode 138:Over the course of speaking about English Renaissance Plays and Shakespeare I have had cause to mention the play ‘A Knack to Know a Knave’ several times.  Most latterly because it is thought to include references to ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ and ‘Titus Andronicus’ and prior to that, in the season on the Early Renaissance Theatre it had a mention as