Acts of imagination: curating the early Elizabethan repertories, 1582–1594

"""Acts of Imagination"" examines playing companies as the locus for the production of Renaissance drama. To date, narratives of Elizabethan theatre history tend to be playwright- and Shakespeare-centered; in response, I explore the companies operating during the under-examined dozen years of theatre before William Shakespeare entered the marketplace. The project thus takes as its organizing principle that of the period—the companies—rather than those categories privileged thereafter—authors and directors. Using the pioneering work of Scott McMillin and Sally-Beth MacLean as a point of departure, I expose how the repertory system galvanized innovation in playing techniques, playhouse design, and playtext production. Each chapter focuses on one season and one of four companies to expose the interconnections between thematic concerns and staging techniques that set a given company apart, as well as underscore the fact that it was repetition, revision, and collaboration as much as novelty that produced financial success in this theatrical marketplace. Attending to the collective process that was the Elizabethan theatre industry, I show the ways in which dramaturgical innovation and literary production were mutually constitutive drivers, as well as how this industry became the engine from which an oeuvre like Shakespeare's and the cult of authorship evolved. By sketching the contours of the Elizabethan theatre's evolution, I widen our vantage of this dramatic landscape by providing unexamined, anonymous, and even ""lost"" plays cultural specificity and repertorial context."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Tavares, Elizabeth E.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Perry, Curtis
• Stevens, Andrea R
• Newcomb, Lori H.
• Barrett, Robert W.

• English literature
• sixteenth century
• Renaissance theatre
• Repertory Studies
• Original Practices
• playing companies
• house style
• Admiral’s Men
• Pembroke’s Men
• Queen’s Men
• Strange’s Men
• Sussex’s Men

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2016 Elizabeth E. Tavares

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/92902

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/92902