Free public lecture: Shakespeare's First Folio on stage

This looks like a great event coming up in the Theatre department at the end of this month: 

STR Wickham Lecture 2017: Shakespeare’s First Folio on Stage

Tues 30 May 2017 at 5.30pm

Professor Emma Smith

Wickham Theatre, Department of Theatre, Cantock's Close

The Department of Theatre is delighted to welcome Professor Emma Smith to give the Society for Theatre Research's 2017 Wickham Lecture.

Shakespeare’s First Folio on Stage

In the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, the 1623 First Folio, there’s no mention of the acting company to which Shakespeare belonged for most of his career: the King’s Men. Many accounts of the Folio suggest that it rejects the theatre itself, by redirecting Shakespeare's plays away from the stigma of performance. Nevertheless, physical copies show us how the book was used by theatres and performers from the seventeenth century onwards. In fact, the history of actors’ encounters with this book demonstrates its ongoing association with the stage in different periods. From the recently discovered copy from the Jesuit college in St Omer, to the modern commitment to Folio punctuation by many actors and companies, this lecture attempts to put the stage back into the book.

No booking is necessary; please just turn up.

Prof. Emma Smith is Fellow of Hertford College and Lecturer in the Faculty of English at Oxford University. Her research focuses on Shakespeare and on early modern drama. Her most recent book Shakespeare's First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book (Oxford University Press, 2016) explores the material histories of individual copies of Shakespeare's First Folio from 1623 to the present day.

For more details contact Dr. Kirsty Sedgman

Researching Theatre Audiences & Cultural Value at University of Bristol
British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow: ‘A Tale of Two Cities: Mapping the Relationship between Bristol Old Vic, London, the Regions and their Communities, from 1946 to the Present'
Membership Secretary & Treasurer, The Society for Theatre Research

Out now: Locating the Audience: How People Found Value in National Theatre Wales (Intellect)

Email: kirsty.sedgman at bristol.ac.uk
Twitter: @kirstysedgman