EVENTS
JAN. 2025 THE BUSY BODY
Susanna Centlivre's The Busy Body (1709)
A script-in-hand performance
Performances in Oxford (24 Jan.) and Richmond, London (26 Jan.)
Two young women plot to escape their controlling guardians. But will the nosy Marplot - the "busy body" - ruin the plan? A clever and hilarious exploration of how women might find freedom of choice in an age of the marriage contract, Centlivre’s comedy was hugely popular on the 18th-century stage – not least, for its brilliant cast of characters. We partner with Oxford's Cultural Programme, Creation Theatre, and the Orange Tree Theatre to revive this play for the 21st century.
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Oxford performance: Fri. 24 Jan. 2025, 5pm, Mordan Hall, St. Hugh's College​​
Tickets HERE.
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Richmond performance: Sun. 26 Jan. 2025, 3pm, Orange Tree Theatre
Tickets HERE.
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PAST r/18 EVENTS
4 may 2022 Who's the Dupe?
Hannah Cowley's Who’s the Dupe? (1779)
A script-in-hand performance
St. Hugh's College, Oxford
4 May 2022, 5.30pm
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A cast of professional actors will mount a script-in-hand performance of Hannah Cowley's riotous 2-act farce, having spent the day rehearsing the play.
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Directed by Colin Blumenau. Produced by Creation Theatre.
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Read more about this event here.
Book your free ticket HERE.
8-9 Sept. 2022 inchbald conference
Elizabeth Inchbald: A Bicentennial Conference
St. Hugh's College, Oxford
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2021 marks the bicentenary of the death of actress, playwright, novelist, and editor, Elizabeth Inchbald, whose plays are among the most popular of the final decades of the eighteenth century. This two-day conference will consider Inchbald’s work and legacy, both of which remain profoundly undervalued and understudied. The conference will include a professional, script-in-hand performance of Inchbald’s farce, Animal Magnetism (1788).
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Registration and programme information here.
27-28 Oct. 2022 Newberry symposium
R/18: Re-Activating the Repertoire - A Two-Day Symposium for Researchers, Practitioners, and Producers
Newberry Library, Chicago
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23 JAN. 2023 ANIMAL MAGNETISM
Elizabeth Inchbald's Animal Magnetism (1788)
Presented by Red Bull Theater
Live-stream on 23 Jan. 2023 at 7.30pm ET
On-demand viewing from 24-29 Jan.
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Elizabeth Inchbald’s 18th-century farce is a brilliant riff on the art of performance and a hilarious and all too relevant takedown of some men’s insistence that they own and control women’s bodies. This one-off performance is part of Red Bull Theater’s OBIE Award-winning **Revelation Readings **series, which offers audiences the unique opportunity to experience rarely produced classic plays performed by the finest actors working today. It will be recorded live at the Library of The Players in Manhattan and is presented in collaboration with the R/18 Collective.
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For more information and to book your free ticket, please see here.
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3 FEB. 2023 BALLET DE Porcelaines
Zoom roundtable on Ballet de Porcelaines
Online, Friday 3 Feb. 2023, 4pm EST / 9pm GMT
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Meredith Martin, art history professor at New York University, and Phil Chan, choreographer and activist, have together revived the Ballet des Porcelaines, a Baroque ballet pantomime of 1739. In this Zoom roundtable, Martin and three scholars consider the challenges of bringing eighteenth-century stage works to today's audiences, especially when such works are deeply immersed in, and express, the ideology of white European supremacy. What are the rewards and implications of this reimagining of the Ballet des Porcelaines? And what can we learn from it?
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For more information and to register, please see here.
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24 FEB. 2023 A BOLD STROKE for a wife
Susanna Centlivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718)
A rehearsed reading, presented by Creation Theatre
Maplethorpe Hall, St. Hugh's College, Oxford
Friday 24 Feb. 2023, 5pm
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Creation Theatre present a rehearsed reading of Centlivre's comic masterpiece, in collaboration with the R/18 Collective. Young Colonel Fainwell wants to marry Anne Lovely but there’s a problem: he needs the consent of all four of her guardians and they’re very different men. How can he possibly meet the combined approval of a stockbroker, a Quaker, an antiquarian, and an ageing fashionista? The answer: by becoming a stockbroker, a Quaker, an antiquarian, and a fashionista.
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Free tickets will be available soon via Creation's website.
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APRIL 2023 THE EMPEROR OF THE MOON
Aphra Behn's The Emperor of the Moon (1687)
A Digital Production, presented by Creation Theatre
Live for 5 nights: 22, 25, 26, 27, 28 April 2023 (times TBA)
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Dr. Baliardo has lost the plot. Obsessed with pseudo-scientific ideas and more interested in his huge telescope than his family, an intervention is needed - and that’s exactly what his daughter, niece, and their lovers intend. When Baliardo is contacted by none other than the Emperor of the Moon, so begins an elaborate ruse that will bring the triumph of love and the return of reason.
Aphra Behn’s spectacular farce is brought to you live each night by the magic of digital theatre. The production is directed by Gari Jones and presented by Creation Theatre, in collaboration with the R/18 Collective.
Tickets will be available soon via Creation's website.
11 MAY 2023 THE MASSACRE
Elizabeth Inchbald's The Massacre (1792)
A rehearsed reading, presented by Creation Theatre
Maplethorpe Hall, St. Hugh's College, Oxford
11 May 2023, time TBA
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In The Massacre, Inchbald daringly explores the causes and costs of revolutionary violence. Written as the French Revolution spiralled into bloodshed, and too politically provocative to be performed in the playwright's own lifetime, the tragedy remains chillingly timely.
Free tickets will be available soon via Creation's website.
25 MAY 2023 de Montfort
Joanna Baillie's De Monfort (1798)
A rehearsed reading, presented by Creation Theatre
Maplethorpe Hall, St. Hugh's College, Oxford
25 May 2023, time TBA
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De Monfort - wealthy, respected, loved - is driven to madness and murder by his all-consuming jealousy of another man. Is he truly being goaded or is it all in his imagination? And is his love for his sister really that of a brother? Baillie's tragedy powerfully demonstrates her belief that theatre was the place for dissecting the human passions.
Free tickets will be available soon via Creation's website.
16-21 Sept. 2023 cato
Joseph Addison's Cato (1713)
Lab Theatre at the Clarence Brown Theatre, Knoxville
Sept. 16, 19, 20, and 21 at 7pm; Sept. 17 at 2:30pm
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Addison's play is in the American bloodstream. Dramatizing the final day of Cato the Younger's life and the fall of the Roman Republic, it was staged by George Washington's troops at Valley Forge in 1778. A talented cast under the direction of Charles Pasternak bring this important and powerful play into the twenty-first century.
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This project is supported by a generous grant from the Institute of American Civics and the scholarly resources of the R/18 Collective, along with the University of Tennessee Departments of English, Classics, History, and Theatre, and the Center for Global Engagement.
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For more information and to book your free ticket, please see here.
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Jan. 2024 the revenge
Edward Young's The Revenge
Revelation Reading by Red Bull Theater, NYC
Mon. 22 Jan. 2024, 7.30pm EST​
Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 West 42nd Street
ALSO SIMULCAST and then available on demand 23-28 Jan.
Immensely popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Edward Young’s The Revenge (1721) ghosts a tale that Shakespeare’s audiences will recognize—a general and his new bride manipulated to tragic ends—but in the context of Spain’s conquests in North Africa. In this tale the revenger is the Moor—Zanga, an enslaved prince—who wreaks righteous vengeance on his oppressor. The fiery Zanga, a favorite role of both Ira Aldridge and Edmund Kean, finally gets his return to the spotlight.
Directed by Nathan Winkelstein. Presented in partnership with the Mellon Foundation sponsored “On Decolonizing Theatre” Seminar at Northwestern University.
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ONLINE SEMINAR: “To receive me hell blows all her fires”
Tues. 16 Jan. 2024, 7.30-8.30pm EST
Leading scholars will “preview” The Revenge through video clips and a panel discussion about the production. Panelists inlclude: Amy Huang (Bates College), Lisa Freeman (University of Illinois-Chicago), Bridget Orr (Vanderbilt University), and Cornesha Tweede (Arizona State University).
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Part of the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar "On Decolonizing Theatre" at Northwestern University (see below).
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2023-24 on decolonizing theatre
Funded by a Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, the Northwestern multi-disciplinary project “On Decolonizing Theatre” will feature a series of events and curricular offerings during the 2023-2024 academic year on the theme of how performers and theater directors have been grappling with issues relating to colonialism, imperialism, racism, patriarchy, and misogyny in theatrical works from the late 17th through the early 19th century, including plays, operas, and ballets.
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​Screening of Joseph Addison's Cato
Mon. 22 Jan. 2024, 3.30-5pm CST
Main Library Forum Room, Northwestern’s Evanston campus
A viewing of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s recent production of Cato by Joseph Addison. A screening of The Revenge will follow immediately afterwards.
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Panel on Cato
Mon. 29 Jan. 2024, 5.15-7pm CST
Main Library Forum Room, Northwestern’s Evanston campus
This panel discussion focuses on a production of Cato staged at the University of Tennessee’s Clarence Brown Theatre in September 2023. We will view clips from the production and discuss how the creative team activates Addison’s text for a twenty-first century audience. Panel: Misty Anderson (UT-Knoxville), Shinnerrie Jackson (UT-Knoxville), Sara Monoson (Northwestern University), and Melvin Rogers (Brown University). Al Tillery (Northwestern University) will moderate.
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See also the reading and panel discussion of The Revenge (above).
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For more information see here.
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