Talk with Professor Laurie Johnson – Bargate: A Shakespearean Provincial Playhouse

Event Information

Although Southampton’s Bargate is not a typical Shakespearean playhouse venue, it was an effective performance venue for mayoral command performances and community playing throughout that era. Leading theatre history scholar Professor Laurie Johnson (International Visiting Fellow at Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities) has been researching the use of the site by local entertainers and touring playing companies in the Elizabethan era and will explain why the building’s unusual design may have contributed to its success as a playing venue. Find out how Southampton’s own guildhall helped to shape the theatre of Shakespeare! This public talk will also feature readings of selections from Elizabethan plays by performers from the Sarah Siddons Fan Club.

Laurie Johnson is Professor of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and Royal Historical Society. He is currently an International Visiting Fellow at Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities, University of Southampton and academic adviser to the Museum of Shakespeare development, Shoreditch. His publications include Leicester’s Men and their Plays: An Early Elizabethan Playing Company and its Legacy (2023) and Shakespeare’s Lost Playhouse: Eleven Days at Newington Butts (2018).

Cancellations