Shakespeare Magazine 05

Historic places
Actors
“Storytelling is a core aspect of both the
advocate and actor. The objective is to
connect emotionally with the person
one is trying to persuade”
hakespeare’s Globe is on a quest
to stage every play known to
have been performed on the
stages of London before 1642.
Launched in 1995 by Globe
Education, Read Not Dead
brings actors, audiences and
scholars together to explore
and celebrate those plays by
Shakespeare’s contemporaries
via script-in-hand, play-ina-day
performances. They
are not meant to be polished
productions, but there is a
shared spirit of adventure and
excitement for the actors and
audiences uncovering these
hidden gems.
Part of the project is to take these rare plays
back to their historical context. Last summer,
Love’s Victory by Lady Mary Wroth was
staged at Penshurst Place in Kent. It is the
rehearse Lady
Mary Wroth’s Love’s
Victory (c. 1620) at
Penshurst Place, Kent.
first pastoral comedy known to be written
by a woman, and Penshurst Place is the very
location it is most likely to have been written
and first performed 400 years ago.
At the beginning of its new ‘Shakespeare
and Friendship’ season of public events,
Globe Education is taking Read Not Dead
across the river Thames to London’s Inns
of Court for a special series celebrating the
‘amity of the inns’.
The series launched in November with a
performance of The Most Excellent Comedy
of Two The Most Faithfullest Friends
Damon and Pithias. Written around 1564 by
Richard Edwards, a little-known precursor to
Shakespeare, this tragi-comedy celebrates true
38 SHAKESPEARE magazine