Shakespeare in Shoreditch

This innovative study builds on the latest developments in theatre history, playhouse archaeology, textual studies, and performance research to present a new style of Shakespeare in the East End. between the years 1596 and 1599.

While Stratford is home to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Southwark has its reconstructed Globe, Shakespeare’s storied connection with London’s East End lies a distant third in contemporary discourse. But it was here, among the alleys and the stews of Whitechapel and Shoreditch, that the young poet first made his name in the late 1590s, writing, staging, and acting in plays quite unlike anything at the Globe or the RSC today. Building on a remarkable series of findings from recent excavations at East End playhouse sites, this innovative study brings together the latest advances in theatre history, textual studies, and performance research to present a new style of Shakespeare in the East End.

Focusing on the two-year period when the Chamberlain’s Men were resident at the Curtain Playhouse in Shoreditch, the book explores a range of distinctive features—from stage combat to sex work, dancing to drinking, and jigging to jingoism—that influenced the aesthetics and utility of Shakespeare’s dramatic texts in their East End performances. The result was a riotous and resourceful, spectacular and violent, direct and interactive style of Shakespeare, quite unlike any other stage in his career or at any other playhouse.