Precision, Consistency and Completeness in Early-Modern Playbook Manuscripts: The Evidence from Thomas of Woodstock and John a Kent and John a Cumber

Egan, Gabriel

doi:10.1093/library/12.4.376

Cited by 17 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 30 publications

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“…52 This direction has been variously interpreted, but there is general agreement that it was written by the man preparing the play for the stage. 53 In the Sir John van Olden Barnavelt (1619; Globe) manuscript, a bookkeeper has added 'Son abed', 54 which if nothing else (the staging is difficult to decipher) is an interpolated direction for what the text only implies. The practical purpose of such annotations is much clearer in The Spanish Curate, a printed text that includes what are almost certainly a bookkeeper's additions to the underlying manuscript.…”

Section: Beds In Performance -Practicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beds on the Early Modern Stage

Thomson

2016

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Beds on the Early Modern StageBed scenes remind us how little we know about staging practices in early modern London playhouses. Stage directions often say that a bed was ' discovered' but not where or how. And if it had curtains, were they on the bed or over an opening in the tiring house wall? Was the bed a four-poster, even though such a structure would have blocked sightlines and been cumbersome? Given the extra staging demands bed scenes entailed, why did playwrights include them? This study focuses on these and related matters with reference to all bed scenes in plays written between 1580 and 1642.Leslie Thomson (l.thomson@utoronto.ca) is professor emeritus of English at the University of Toronto.

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Section: Beds In Performance -Practicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beds on the Early Modern Stage

Thomson

2016

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What if Greg and Werstine Had Examined Early Modern Spanish Dramatic Manuscripts?

Tronch¹

2017

Shakespeare Survey 70

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Approaching the Interval in the Early Modern Theatre

Hutchings

2024

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In requiring artificial light, the early modern indoor theatre had to interrupt the action so that the candles could be attended to, if necessary. The origin of the five-act, four-interval play was not classical drama but candle technology. This Element explores the implications of this aspect of playmaking. Drawing on evidence in surviving texts it explores how the interval affected composition and stagecraft, how it provided opportunities for stage-sitters, and how amphitheatre plays were converted for indoor performance (and vice versa). Recovering the interval yields new insights into familiar texts and brings into the foreground interesting examples of how the interval functioned in lesser-known plays. This Element concludes with a discussion of how this aspect of theatre might feed into the debate over the King's Men's repertory management in its Globe-Blackfriars years and sets out the wider implications for both the modern theatre and the academy.

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Precision, Consistency and Completeness in Early-Modern Playbook Manuscripts: The Evidence from Thomas of Woodstock and John a Kent and John a Cumber

Cited by 17 publications

References 30 publications

Beds on the Early Modern Stage

Beds on the Early Modern Stage

What if Greg and Werstine Had Examined Early Modern Spanish Dramatic Manuscripts?

Approaching the Interval in the Early Modern Theatre

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