Theatre & Performance Studies News
On 15 April, via the African Women Playwrights' Network project, Yvette Hutchison launched Woza Africa: Theatre in the African Context, a free digital education resource which she designed with Kenyan playwright JC Niala and Public Engagement Consultant Flo Swann, to introduce teachers, theatre groups and students around the world to a wide range of African approaches to storytelling, alongside historic and cultural frames of reference.
It has had good take-up, with some 82 schools, theatre groups, public sector organisations and Universities from 19 countries uploading it so far. Theatres like the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and Birmingham Mac have signalled their intent to use it with their youth drama groups.
So please use or pass on the link to anyone who you think may want to explore aspects of theatre specific to the African contexts, especially with the challenges of remote teaching and home schooling right now https://warwick.ac.uk/awpn
David Coates has an article published: ‘Amateur Theatre Networks in the Archive’ Performance Research’s special issue ‘On Amateurs’
It is available through the library or https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/67DYCCYI6AXQ9DQWCUEY/full?target=10.1080/13528165.2020.1736751
Theatres' David Coates is shortlisted for Warwick Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence!
Well done to David, this initiative recognises the importance of academic support to our students and seeks to celebrate the work of the University's dedicated network of Senior and Personal Tutors. We will keep our fingers crossed for you!
David Coates receives funding from the Humanities Research Fund for Shelley family project
David Coates has been awarded £2000 impact/ pump-priming money from the Humanities Research Fund for his project exploring the tangible and mythical legacies of the Shelley family in Bournemouth and Boscombe. He has a public-facing event at the Shelley Theatre in Boscombe on 29 February 2020 which includes presentations from Dr Stephen Hebron (curator of the Shelley collection at the Bodleian) and Lord Abinger (the current Shelley title and estate holder). There’ll also be hands-on transcription and research activities, with the day culminating with a staged reading of a play by Percy Florence Shelley, son of Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, performed by members of Bournemouth Little Theatre. It’ll be the first time that the play has been heard in over 150 years – and what a treat that it’ll take place in Percy Florence Shelley’s former private theatre, for which the play was originally intended!
Dr David Coates receives funding to run a Heritage Open Day at the Shelley Theatre in Boscombe, Dorset.
Congratulations to Dr David Coates, who has received £1000 from the Public Engagement Fund to run a Heritage Open Day at the Shelley Theatre in Boscombe, Dorset. This venue was originally built as a private theatre in the home of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, the son of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet, and the Mary Shelley, the novelist. The event is being run to pump-prime a larger project titled ‘The Legacies and Cultural Heritage of the Shelley family in Dorset’, which he hopes will be supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Open day will include three expert-led interactive workshops on the Shelley family’s legacies, a rehearsed reading of two manuscript playlets written by Sir Percy Florence Shelley, and an introduction to the proposed two-year project.