The Resurgens Theatre Company
Resurgens Theatre Company proudly presents
Death and Domesticity: A Conference on Domestic Tragedy
September 28 and 29, 2018
Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse
Featuring “original practices” performances of
Anonymous & Shakespeare’s Arden of Faversham
Wed., Sept. 26, 7:30pm
Fri., Sept. 28, 7:30 pm
Sun., Sept. 30, 6:30 pm
and
Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness Thurs., Sept. 27, 7:30 pm
Sat., Sept. 29, 7:30 pm
Tickets can be purchased here.
For conference schedule and registration form, please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Additional support provided by the Georgia State University Department of English
Arden of Faversham
Alice Arden has a problem. She’s fallen hard for a handsome fellow with a promising future. But he’s not her husband. What’s an early modern woman to do? When “Love is a god, and marriage is but words,” there’s only one answer—hire some hit men, of course! Resurgens Theatre Company returns to the Shakespeare Tavern this September with the earliest “true crime” drama to appear on the English stage, Arden of Faversham. Directed by Dr. Brent Griffin, our “original practices” production will not only provide Atlanta audiences with their first opportunity to experience this pioneering work of Elizabethan domestic tragedy, but also their first chance to hear Shakespeare’s beginnings as a collaborative playwright and theatre practitioner.
Woman Killed with Kindness
Newly married John and Anne Frankford seem to have it all—nice house, devoted servants, and plenty of cash. But what happens when an amorous acquaintance enters their home? Sir Charles and Sir Francis appear to be the best of friends. But what occurs when blood and money come between them and their loved ones? After a fall from grace, is it “possible / To undo things done, to call back yesterday”? Such are the ordinary ills faced by the everyday inhabitants of Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness. “Look for no glorious state,” as Resurgens Theatre Company returns to the Shakespeare Tavern this September with “country measures” and the music of “heartstrings made [from] melancholy wood.” Directed by Dr. Brent Griffin, our “original practices” production fully invests in the colloquial rhythms and rustic cadences that make Heywood’s play not only a masterpiece of early modern domestic tragedy, but also a precursor of twentieth-century poetic naturalism.
DEATH AND DOMESTICITY CONFERENCE
FRIDAY, SEPT. 28
10:00-10:30—Registration and coffee
10:30-11:00—Welcome and opening remarks
11:00-12:15—First session: Ariane Balizet (Texas Christian University), “Domestic Tragedy and Blood: A Yorkshire Tragedy” and John Gulledge (Emory University) “‘The spleen prickles you’: Laughter and Blood in Arden of Faversham”
12:30-1:30—Luncheon
1:30-2:45—Second session: Molly Hand (Florida State University), “Animal Crimes and The Witch of Edmonton” and Nicholas Helms (University of Alabama) “Corpse-Reading: Cognition, Corpses, and the Early Modern Stage”
3:00-4:15—Plenary address: Terri Bourus (Florida State University), “Who Dunnit? Amateurs, Professionals, and a Diva in Arden of Faversham”
7:30—Anonymous & Shakespeare’s Arden of Faversham, Resurgens Theatre Company
SATURDAY, SEPT. 29
10:00-10:30—Registration and coffee
10:30-11:00—Backstage tour of the Shakespeare Tavern
11:00-12:15—Third session: Brent Griffin (Resurgens Theatre Company) “Heywood’s Domestic Œconomy: ‘Original Practices’ in A Woman Killed with Kindness” and Catherine Thomas and Matthew Trautwein (Resurgens Theatre Company) “Costuming and Adapting Music for Domestic Tragedies”
12:30-1:30—Luncheon
1:30-2:45—Fourth session: Joseph Kelly (Georgia State University), “The Role of the Reluctant Harbinger in Arden of Faversham and A Woman Killed with Kindness” and Cheryl Birdseye (Oxford Brookes University) “‘[I]n danger of lawe through ignorance’: Female Testimonial Reliability in A Warning for Fair Women”
3:00-4:15—Fifth session: Barbara Sebek (Colorado State University), “Interrogating Genre in the Undergraduate Renaissance Literature Classroom: Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam and Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and/versus Domestic Tragedy” and Ann Christensen (University of Houston), “Student-Friendly Editions—A Pedagogical and Scholarly Journey with A Warning for Fair Women”
7:30—Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness, Resurgens Theatre Company
Additional 2018-2019 Productions at The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse
? ?A Warning for Fair Women
Performances
Mon. November 19 @ 7:30pm ?
? Tues. November 20 @7:30pm?
? Wed. November 21 @ 7:30pm?
? Fri. November 23 @ 11pm?
?
Resurgens closes our Season of Domestic Tragedies with a play based on the brutal murder of a prominent London merchant, George Sanders, in 1573. First performed by Shakespeare’s company in the late sixteenth century, A Warning for Fair Women mixes allegory, masque, bloodlust, and courtroom drama in a show unlike anything Atlanta audiences have experienced at the Shakespeare Tavern—in fact, it’s unlike anything anyone has experienced anywhere, as there’s no record of any public performance since 1599. Directed by Dr. Brent Griffin, our “original practices” production will work in close collaboration with Dr. Ann Christensen, the editor of a new critical edition of the text, to create the first professional staging of this lost tragedy in modern history.
Tickets & InformationMunday, Chettle, Dekker, Heywood, and Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More
Performances
Mon. April 22 @ 7:30pm
Tues. April 23 @7:30pm
Wed. April 24 @ 7:30pm
Fri. April 26 @ 11pm
Resurgens is honored to present this stirring early modern account of one leader’s defiant stand against mob violence and groupthink in an era of autocratic misrule. Partially penned by Shakespeare, Sir Thomas More offers both a timely and timeless drama of individual courage in the face of mass conformity. The original production was banned from the Elizabethan stage by the Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney, because of its controversial references to insurrection. Now, after 400 years, Dr. Brent Griffin will revive this neglected classic for the first professional performance of the full play ever on this side of the Atlantic.
Tickets & Information