The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0249  Friday, 15 June 2012

From:        Folger Shakespeare Library < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         Thursday, June 14, 2012 11:39 AM

Subject:     Free Talks Around London Exhibition Begin Monday

Mondays at 7pm in the theatre
followed by a reception and viewing of the exhibition

June 18: 

John Schofield on St. Paul’s Cathedral Before Christopher Wren

St. Paul’s Cathedral was built to the design of English architect Sir Christopher Wren as part of a major rebuilding program following the 1666 Great Fire of London. However, Wren’s magnificent structure is only the most recent in a succession of Anglo-Saxon and medieval cathedrals on the site. Dr. John Schofield, the Cathedral Archaeologist for St. Paul’s Cathedral, will discuss how recent archaeological and historical research is now reconstructing the pre-Wren medieval cathedral. Reserve your seat.

July 9:
Ralph Alan Cohen on Blackfriars: “The Most Convenient Place”

Before it became synonymous with a theater, the Blackfriars was a London precinct at the nexus of the city, the church, and the court, ideally located at the intersection of London’s two rivers. Ralph Alan Cohen, Director of Mission and Co-Founder of the American Shakespeare Center which is home to a replica of the Blackfriars Playhouse, looks at how the place and the playhouse mirrored one another and made the Blackfriars the place to be and the place to be seen. Reserve your seat.

July 30:
David Schalkwyk and actors from Taffety Punk:
Readings from The Roaring Girl

Actors from DC’s Taffety Punk Theatre Company present a staged reading of excerpts of The Roaring Girl, a bold, brilliant play by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker. The play was first produced in 1611 and was restaged famously in the 1980s by the Royal Shakespeare Company. David Schalkwyk, Folger’s Director of Research, talks about why this “city comedy” reveals so much about Jacobean London. Reserve your seat.

June 5–September 30: 

Open City: London, 1500–1700

Open City explores three everyday gathering places—church, theater, and market—and how they influenced the way in which Londoners formed communities, negotiated social relations, and understood their places in the world. 

201 East Capitol Street, SE  |  Washington, DC 20003