Shakespeare, Technology, Media, Performance
University of Exeter
Saturday 24 June, 2017

This conference will examine the recent significant changes in how Shakespeare’s plays are performed and disseminated through old and new technologies and media.

At one end of the spectrum, through performances in reconstructed early modern theatres, early modern performance technologies have re-entered mainstream culture. The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is only the most recent example of how early modern technologies and the plays written by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and successors have returned to the cutting edge of present-day theatre.

At the other end of the spectrum, the current production of The Tempest by the RSC in partnership with Intel exemplifies how mainstream theatre companies have, in the wake of productions by smaller companies experimenting with digital and virtual theatre, embraced digital media. The digital revolution has generated new ways of creating characters, moving them across physical and conceptual spaces and reimagining the spectacular technologies of the Jacobean masque. This Tempest is the latest in a string of productions that have made use not only of complex backstage technology but also of social media to reach out to new physical and virtual audiences. Moreover, with the increased use of theatre broadcast technologies, productions of early modern drama can now reach global audiences and be disseminated in a multitude of formats: screened in cinemas or on television, re-edited for educational use, streamed online, sold as DVDs or Blu-Ray discs, extracted on company websites and in promotional tweets, and staged live.

Meanwhile, changes in technology have also affected how early modern drama is remediated on television, in feature films and on our computer screens. We can now find a dizzying range of appropriations and mash-ups of Shakespeare and early modern drama across a variety of online platforms and social media sites, with individuals able to use digital technologies as an entry-point into participating in performance. Technology is thus affecting the production and dissemination of early modern drama along with access to the productions, modes of spectatorship and participation in fan cultures.

This conference is organised and sponsored by Shakespeare Bulletin to mark the end of Pascale Aebischer’s term as General Editor of the journal. It responds to the technological turn in performance studies evident in a significant part of the work submitted to the journal between 2012 and 2017 and aims to bring together a range of scholarly approaches to the technologies of performance that shape the production of Shakespeare and his contemporaries today.

Keynote speakers:

• Courtney Lehmann (University of the Pacific)
• Ramona Wray (Queen’s University Belfast)
• Pascale Aebischer (University of Exeter)

We call for papers on any of the following or related topics in relation to the performance of Shakespeare and/or early modern drama:

• Re-imagined performance technologies in reconstructed playhouses and Practice-as-Research
• Intermedial performance practices
• Social media performance
• Theatre broadcast technology and spectatorship
• Television and feature film adaptation
• Digital objects and digital media
• Technology of the classroom

Paper proposals of up to 300 words, accompanied by a short biographical statement, should be submitted to Emma Bessent (E.Bessent@exeter.ac.uk) by Monday 27 February. Up to 6 postgraduate bursaries covering the conference attendance fee plus a standard contribution of £50 to assist with travel expenses are available to encourage contributions to the debate by a new generation of scholars. Please specify in your proposal if you wish to apply for one of these. Early submissions will be preferred.