Girls on Stage and Page in the Elizabethan Age

Not Just the Tudors

History Hit

History

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Contrary to the idea that the early modern stage was male-dominated, girls actually played an active part in religious dramas, civic pageants, Elizabethan country house entertainments, and Stuart court and household masques. Girls also excelled as singers, translators and authors whose power was evoked in the plays of Shakespeare.

In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Deanne Williams, author of Girl Culture in the Middle Ages and Renaissance,

which shows how the active presence and participation of girls shaped Renaissance culture.

This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.

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Transcript

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0:36.4	We tend to think of female performances, something which began with the first actresses on
0:41.0	the London stage in the mid-17th century, an event which disrupted a tradition of all male
0:46.7	performance established under Lisbon I.
0:50.8	But girls and girlhood had been integral to both plot and creation.
0:56.3	From as early as around 950, when Hotswither of Ganderheim wrote her plays.
1:02.6	And so when Margaret Hughes, the first professional actress, stepped out into London stage in 1660,
1:08.4	she followed a legacy of rich and varied female performers and creators.
1:13.7	In fact, girls and young women were dancers, actors, translators and dramatists.
1:19.2	They were creators and performers in civic pageants, court masks, household performance and
1:24.2	royal entertainments, and as much part of the history of performance as their male counterparts.
1:31.5	Here to discuss the lives of these incredible girls and the performance of girlhood across
1:36.5	the centuries is Diane Williams, Professor of English at York University.
1:42.3	Her books, Shakespeare and the Performance of Girlhood and Girl Culture in the Middle Ages
1:47.3	and Renaissance performance and pedagogy have reasserted the influence of these remarkable
	...

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