Reading Early Plays (REP)

Part of a manuscript; some line from a play in a word processor app; the cover of a Jacobean play, claiming to be written by Ben Johnson, John Fletcher & Tho. Middleton.

In REP this week:
Monday - our Palaeography group will transcribe rates of pay for Tudor carpenters

Tuesday- the Playmakers will irked to discover that the word “anonymity” isn’t recorded before 1695

Wednesday - we read The Widow, which probably isn’t written by two of the people mentioned here.

A piece of manuscript with words, a spreadsheet of character names, the title page of Love’s Cure.

In REP this week:

Monday: our palaeography group will continue to work on documents of the Tudor Revels Office.

Tuesday: our Playmakers mind their “yous” & “thous” whilst writing more scenes for The Cunning Florentines.

Wednesday: we read Love’s Cure, as performed by the King’s Men in 1613.

Three columns of text from a manuscript, a newly written play and a Jacobean printed book.

REP returns to action this week.

Monday: our palaeography group continues to work on documents of the Tudor Revels Office.

Tuesday: our Playmakers will write more scenes for a brand new play from 1616, “The Cunning Florentines”.

Wednesday: we read the Somerset Wedding Masques of 1613/14.

Three columns of text from a manuscript, a newly written play and a Jacobean printed book.

REP returns to action this week.

Monday: our palaeography group continues to work on documents of the Tudor Revels Office.

Tuesday: our Playmakers will write more scenes for a brand new play from 1616, “The Cunning Florentines”.

Wednesday: we read the Somerset Wedding Masques of 1613/14.

No REP reading tonight, as we begin a Christmas break.
On January 7th we return with another season of King’s Men’s plays, starting in 1613, and including Court Masques, Witches, Widows, Mad Lovers, plus a revival of Macbeth as the only extant sign of the company’s former writer in residence.

Yes, always causes confusion as it is the same week we start a new season of readings of Early Modern drama after the Christmas break.

The Scene Britain. The Principal Actors were Richard Burbadge, William Ostler, Henry Condel, John Lowin, William Eglestone, John Underwood, Nich. Toolie, Richard Robinson.

Tonight in REP we read Bonduca, a British tragedy by John Fletcher, performed by The King’s Men in 1614.

A Poet for a speech.

“Pray thee, why dost thou wrap thy poison'd pills / In gold and sugar?”

- tonight in REP we read John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, as performed by the King’s Men in 1613.

- of interest to @playsrep.bsky.social #palaeography group —->

From the title page of The Memorable Maske 1613 For more information see readingearlyplays.com

Stars and Statues Made Human, Olympian Knights, Princes of Virginia!

This Wednesday in REP we read three masques for the Lady Elizabeth’s Wedding in 1613.
- written by Chapman & Beaumont, designs by Inigo Jones, music by Johnson, Coprario & Confesse

No Farthingales May Be Worn

From the title page of The Memorable Maske 1613 For more information see readingearlyplays.com

Stars and Statues Made Human, Olympian Knights, Princes of Virginia!

This Wednesday in REP we read three masques for the Lady Elizabeth’s Wedding in 1613.
- written by Chapman & Beaumont, designs by Inigo Jones, music by Johnson, Coprario & Confesse

No Farthingales May Be Worn

A scene from “The Tempest”. From “The Library Shakspeare, Volume One - Comedies”, illustrated by Sir John Gilbert, George Cruikshank and R. Dudley. Published in London by William Mackenzie, c1882.

“Had I plantation of this isle, my lord … And were the king on’t, what would I do?”
- Tonight in REP we will have an AGM at 7pm, followed by a reading of The Tempest to mark its 1612/13 revival by The Kings’ Men.

The Shakespeare Institute Players are currently in China, touring English-translated extracts from The Peony Pavilion, a great classic written by #TangXianzu, #Shakespeare's Chinese contemporary! What an experience.

OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS OXFORD ENGLISH DRAMA Four JACOBEAN SEX TRAGEDIES

Tonight we read The Maid's Tragedy by Beaumont and Fletcher (marking its revival by The King’s Men in 1612/13)
- no difficulties finding a text, as we will be reading from group leader Martin Wiggins’ own edition of the play.

Image cropped from the First Folio edition of Othello

We hope Princess Elizabeth & Frederick V turned up on time for the King’s Men 1613 revival of Othello, performed in celebration of their wedding (we know; not a great wedding play!)
If they wanted to attend REP’s reading of the play they’d need to be there at 7pm not 7.30 (it’s a long play).

On Wednesday, the 1612 revival of Henry IV Part Two will follow our last week’s reading of Part One, as the King’s Men find the retiring Shakespeare still looking over their collective shoulders.
#ShakespeareSunday

a man with a beard is holding a piece of paper in his hand . Alt: a man with a beard is holding a piece of paper in his hand; he looks as we imagine Shakespeare might; with his quill he seems to be conducting music

This week we resume our chronological reading of the plays of the King’s Men: Shakespeare is nearly done with writing, but the company is not done with his plays. So we begin with their 1612 revival of Henry IV Part 1
#ShakespeareSunday

Welcome | Reading Early Plays Reading Early Plays is a group that meets regularly online to explore drama written before the closure of the London theatres in 1642. We are interested in tracing the connections within groups of pla...

The new season of REP play-readings kicks off with 1 Henry IV at 7.30 p.m. on 24 September, and will feature the King’s Men repertory of 1612-14, including The Duchess of Malfi, Valentinian and several Shakespearean revivals.

- see the full autumn schedule here:
www.readingearlyplays.com

While our playreading sessions are on summer break our playmakers are wrestling with complex questions such as “How do you retrieve the headless corpse of a relative from a heavily guarded Venetian piazza?”
The answer, of course, involves sailors, friars, devils and The Cunning Florentines.

“The soliloquies were rather ingeniously achieved by allowing the actor to smoke his pipe silently, while a low voice whispered his thoughts.”
- Julius Caesar in modern dress on British television in 1938.

UPDATED: the trailer for our Playmakers’ newest writing project, now with a title reveal!
(really not #ShakespeareSunday !)

REP’s Playmakers have a new project: a new source, a new story, a new date, a new set of characters to match with a new set of King’s Men actors; eventually, a new play that looks like an old one.

REP’s Playmakers have a new project: a new source, a new story, a new date, a new set of characters to match with a new set of King’s Men actors; eventually, a new play that looks like an old one.

Tonight in REP: an evening of court masques and other incidental King's Men performances (1609-12) with accompanying music & design coming to you via Zoom.

On British television in July 1939, “Fiat Justitia”, an eclectic anthology of literary scenes on the subject of the law, including Much Ado About Nothing & The Merchant of Venice
#Shakespeare

Merry Devil of Edmonton (& 13 other King’s Men plays) performed at Court between Christmas 1612 & 9th April 1613. It’s probable the play was already in their repertoire, in order to mount it and so many others at once. (Wiggins speculates that perhaps it never fell out of their repertoire).

Interesting! I’ll dig around a bit tomorrow.

Heminges moonlighting for his friend the Mayor, and working with Thomas Dekker, not a writer he’d had a great deal of contact with via the King’s Men, though they did revive, & perform at court, his and Webster’s Merry Devil of Edmonton in 1612

A very nice reading of the title character in The Lady of Chabry at #Britgrad2025
Thank you @shakescenery.bsky.social