Duo launches Shakespearean theatre learning platform
A Deptford-based duo are launching an online learning platform about history with a two hour event that will give you the experience of a day in Shakespeare’s Theatre.
The platform, A Bit Lit, was born during lockdown when historian Andy Kesson and Shakespearean actor Jimmy Tucker started putting free weekly history videos online about quirky topics such as bears in Elizabethan England.
Their success has led them to expand their videos with longer events and courses.
They said: “We are really excited to launch this new venture, creating a new space for learning together and connecting a wide audience to the latest ideas and creative work.
“‘A Day Out at Shakespeare’s Theatre’ will launch our new platform perfectly with its blend of archaeological, archival and performance-based discoveries and a real sense of anarchic fun.
“The theatres of Shakespeare’s time were brand-new experiments in public entertainment and the communication of innovative ideas, and we hope to create something similar online.”
A Bit Lit’s debut event will take place on Saturday, January 15 and will be the first in a series of events and courses drawing on historical and cultural research and performance expertise.
Theatre lovers and history buffs are invited to experience A Day Out in Shakespeare’s Theatre, an opportunity to imagine a trip to the theatre in the 1600s, diving into the decisions and dilemmas they might have faced while taking in the sights, sounds and even smells of the day in a two-hour experience.
The event will draw together talents from the worlds of theatre and academia including Sir Simon Russell Beale and This is Shakespeare author Professor Emma Smith, who will introduce the event.
Audience members will have a chance to create their own Shakespearean-era production with performers from improv troupe The Pantaloons, taking learning about Shakespeare’s theatre to a new, more immersive level.
To help build the atmosphere and provide clues as the audience creates the show, theatre and performance artist Emma Frankland and Scottish-Thai actor, theatre-maker, writer and drag queen Bea Webster will deliver traffic and weather reports for the day.
The audience will then be joined by some of the most cutting-edge academics who will reveal surprising and unknown research about the period, including the Museum of London Archaeology’s Heather Knight on forgotten performance venues and Before Shakespeare’s Callan Davies on the women who ran Shakespearean theatre and Holly Dugan on the smells of early modern London.
For more information visit: https://abitlit.co/
Main Picture: Shakespearean actor Jimmy Tucker
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