A Philadelphia #theatre #history tour thread! I walked around Philly today to check out spots where some of America’s first theatres once sat (and still sit, in one case). Let me show you what I found! And hopefully I make @aithpodcast.bsky.social proud. First up…

My conversation with Dr. E. Maggie Solberg about representations of Mary in medieval drama is out now on The Pageant Wagon Podcast!

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Tune in for the inaugural episode of the Pageant Wagon Podcast!

A message from your friendly Medieval Latin drama specialist on this #EasterSunday: Liturgical drama ≠ theatre. Early liturgical tropes and practices may have received dramatic treatments as early as the 10th century, but that does not make them #theatre. That is all. Have a beautiful day!

Introducing…The Pageant Wagon Podcast! I talk to scholars, historians, and practitioners of #medieval and #earlymodern theatre. We discuss new perspectives, staging techniques, and pedagogical strategies. Launching April 1st!

A recently uncovered 3rd-century CE papyrus fragment from Egypt containing excerpts from two lost plays by Euripides also reveals how scripts in the ancient world were constructed for performance!

Nazi-ism is literally 20 years of German history and yet, if you go to a library, the section on German history dedicated to 1925-1945 represents nearly ALL of the books. Make note of that Americans. Our embrace of MAGA may span 12 or more years. But it’ll DOMINATE our history for decades to come.

This is something the performing arts world can teach academics. So, I’m making a thread. 1. You MUST be the loudest cheerleader for your work. It feels cringey & awkward, but spotlighting your scholarly efforts starts with YOU! After all, you know best how to explain the targets of your work.

Year Two of Shakespeare News! Featuring an unholy Annie/MacB mashup from @stratfest.bsky.social, Brad Lander sonnets from @drewsof.bsky.social & Lithub, and the history of theater + beer from @kyleathomas.bsky.social.

Love this company and how we’re re-imagining Store Front Theatre in Chicago! Essay: howlround.com/how-stage-le... @howlround.bsky.social

Cheers & Booze is my series on the intersections of drama/theatre and alcohol. For obvious reasons it’s a lot of fun to work on this content. To Beer or Not To Beer is out! Check out where and when beer/brewing shows up on stage. If you like #drunkhistory, you’ll love this silliness!

Curious about this whole York Mystery Plays in Toronto thing?? Well, you should be! Listen to me talk about the plays and our approach to performing medieval drama.

Listen to me get nerdy about early #medieval #drama and #theatre! Many thanks to @thoetp.bsky.social for having me on

www.thehistoryofeuropeantheatre.com/s2e6 Ep 30: In my first podcast interview Dr Elodie Paillard kindly agreed to discuss the development of Roman theatre and the extent to which it developed out of Greek theatre. Still out there on the podcast feed. #theatre #theatrehistory #greektheatre #podcast

Back in July, I posted about an archaeological find of a possible theatre/performance site from Peru that could be ~4000 yrs old. Well, here’s the follow-up video w/ pics, videos, & the lead archaeologist himself, Dr. Ynoñán, talking about performance rituals in the Americas! youtu.be/GanjFWqnsJQ

I so hope there’s a huge cache of Greek and Roman plays that are amongst these scrolls 🤞🏻 www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

"I’ve had a whole lifetime of being told that computers are the future, and sort of stubbornly being like, 'Well, I still care about my dying art form, theatre'...I have an ambivalence about technology I can’t escape entirely and it drives me to write." www.americantheatre.org/2025/02/03/j...

What I love about the Pope Joan legacy is that it was borne of an imaginative answer to why the ‘cathedra Petri’ has a hole in it. Surely, it was to ensure that a celibate man held all the…faculties of masculinity. Why must the body be gendered in the performance of Papal obligations?

No other classic text has left such a mark on how we tell stories, create theatre, and structure film. But what does it actually say?

I’ve got a video in the works on archaeological sites that appear to be associated with performance. But I need a little help… Anyone here know of any ancient sites (earlier than 500 BCE) that clearly have spaces reserved for public performance? Thanks in advance!

What do you get when you punch a fascist in the face? Justice.

tying theatre to property limits the imagination

The gestures we use in a performative setting are formed of our natural habits. If you don’t regularly do a Nazi salute, or if you’ve conditioned yourself to avoid doing it in normal circumstances, you wouldn’t do one while speaking to a crowd of people. Just saying…

The medieval York Mystery Plays will once again make for an exciting 24 hours of theatre this June in Toronto! I’m honored to be one of the directors associated with this production. Come be part of a nearly 700 year-old theatre tradition! #medievalsky #theatresky plsplayers.com/2025/01/14/t...

“Shucked, like every good corn maze, is a couple hours of corny fun.” My review of the Chicago stop for the National Tour of the musical, Shucked, is out! www.chicagoonstage.com/the-musical-...

The play is called Rossum's Universal Robots and the word “robot” in Czech is connected to feelings & ideas of forced labor. The robots are forced to work for a wealthy, ruling class which they attempt to overthrow. Maybe we should be mounting more productions of Čapek’s play! 🤔

What an asinine take. 1 publicly-visible white space where segregationists and racists were happy to see black people was in blackface minstrelsy. Black performers participated in - white framing to escape economic oppression. Segregationists used Black performers to verify their racist beliefs.

Asks British person to do an American accent: “HOW-dee pardner! Can I haave a BUD Liet?”

The varied lexical terminologies & taxonomies of theatre/drama/performance are hard to navigate for historians. But we still use multivalent language for those things: Theatre/er Drama Play/ing Performance I think of saying ‘drama’ in high school but ‘theatre’ in college. What’s your experience?

After 35 years and nearly $40 million of regranting to thousands of performing artists, the MAP Fund has discontinued its program, citing the end of support from the Duke and Mellon foundations.

My review of Redtwist Theatre’s world-premiere play, THE TOTALITY OF ALL THINGS by Erik Gernand is out now. The gist: go see this excellent production!! www.chicagoonstage.com/a-total-phil...

Cover for the program for a 1903 production of Georges Feydeau's (b. 12/8/1862) UN FIL A LA PATTE. Via @labnf.bsky.social

Despite its baroque appearance, this church and/or its surrounding monastic confines were the medieval “theatre” for the PLAY ABOUT THE ANTICHRIST, written at Tegernsee in 1159. Excavations done by Sixtus Lampl revealed that the footprint of the modern church keeps w/ its medieval antecedent.

It's December 6th, the Feast of Saint Nicholas, so I'm here with a reminder of what the holy man really did for us.

Moderating a panel of past History majors, telling our current students about the career paths they took — from politics and law to cultural work and consulting. Really impressive, and that’s with a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter missing due to being sick. History: Just Do It

Where are the Greek and Roman drama/theatre scholars here on this Bluesky? Send them to me for follows!

The fact that anyone would need to turn their creative efforts into ‘industry’ just to survive is a problem inherent in our system. Market economies have let our society down. It’s not enough to trade your goods & services for monetary means. One must involve a lot of capital just to find survival.

Can historical forms of theatre be relevant in the 21st century? Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII is doing just that with Japanese Kabuki theatre!

Will the NYC Education Department actually cut arts programs at the city’s preeminent arts high school? La Guardia High is reportedly sounding the alarm.

I so loved directing this show. Hard to believe it’s been 8 years now! The 12th-century PLAY OF ADAM (trans. Carol Symes) performed at The Cloisters Museum, NYC #medievalsky #theatresky

Tis the season for kartoffelspieße at the #christkindlmarkt!

I can’t help but feel lifted by this thread because where there is little to no boundary between prayer & magic in early Medieval Latin texts, so too is there little to no boundary between drama, liturgy, and ritual—esp. in monastic contexts where each served in the work of erudition & soteriology

This Day in Labor History: November 27, 1937. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) debuted its play “Pins and Needles,” which would become the longest running musical of the 1930s. Let's talk about union culture, something long gone today, much to the movement's detriment!

Why is it bad luck to say Macbeth in a theatre!? 🤔 #theatre #theatretraditions #theatrehistory

Some of y’all don’t know about the aggressive and unapologetic practices of the Living Theatre and it shows

Actor & director Harley Granville-Barker (b. 11/25/1877) & Lillah McCarthy being "attacked" by George Bernard Shaw during rehearsals for Shaw's ANDROCLES AND THE LION, 1913. Pic Alvin Langdon Coburn via The Victoria & Albert Museum.

Don’t @ me but I don’t know why we shouldn’t ENCOURAGE people to sing along!? This discussion and dichotomy feels borne of capitalism’s fetishizing individualized consumer experience—i.e. promoting the singular against the communal. But performance is a communal act, collectively affective…right?

Need a gift idea for that person who loves the Antichrist, medieval history, and drama? Well, do I have just the book for you! (Psst…It’s also very affordable)

Not only is this an excellent read, it’s perfect for medieval/history-lovers who like a well-researched narrative unencumbered by dense scholarly interlocution

The subjects do overlap. Here in Philly we have America's oldest operating theater at Pennsylvania Hospital. It has served for performances of actual plays, at times. Plus, back in the early 19th Century, newly-founded Jefferson Medical College took over the former Prune Street Theatre.