Shakespeare and His Sisters on Site

The project uses Professor Alison Findlay’s research on site-specific performance of drama by Shakespeare and by two of his female contemporaries, Lady Jane Lumley and Lady Mary Wroth, to engage local communities with the drama and cultural history of their environments.

The project involves three different venues (Lancaster Castle, Nonsuch Park, London and Penshurst Place, Kent) and 6 different collaborative partners: the Duchy of Lancaster and Demi-Paradise Productions (Lancaster); Friends of Nonsuch and Sutton Borough Council (London); Penshurst Place and the Kent Studies and Library Centre (Kent).

It shows how the sites: a former prison, a royal park, and a country house, influence the meanings of the scripts and how the scripts enhance knowledge of the sites. It broadens knowledge of theatre practice including that by Shakespeare’s sisters.