Are you a student actor at the University of Oxford, with experience of acting in at least one production? History DPhil Lucy Clarke (Jesus College) is running practice as research workshops into the performance of early modern authority. This is a unique opportunity to take part in innovative historical research at Oxford!

In these workshops, actors will carry out important early modern processes of authority: arrests, rescues from arrest, and proclamations. There will be three workshops: two rehearsals, and one public workshop. In the first two workshops, which will last between ninety minutes and two hours, you will try out performing the three processes in different ways. We will discuss your experience of either performing the action, being audience to it, or being the arrested criminal. I will make notes on your oral contributions, as long as you give me permission to do so, and I will also observe the performances themselves, taking notes, photographs, and short video recordings. Observing these rehearsals, and our discussion, will provide me with a unique opportunity to understand both the practicalities of early modern performances of authority, and the effects of these performances upon both audiences and arrested persons. Your participation will be invaluable, and will contribute to an entirely new approach to the early modern practice and experience of authority.

The public workshop will take place as part of the Oxford Centre for Early Modern Studies-funded event ‘‘Silence to the proclamation’: a half day symposium into the performance of authority in early modern England’, taking place at Jesus College, Oxford, on the afternoon of March 10th 2020. The workshop will be performed in front of an audience of interested academics and researchers, who will then be able to participate in discussion with you and myself.

Please email lucy.clarke@jesus.ox.ac.uk if interested. Enquiry does not oblige you to take part!