Last day of teaching after nineteen pretty non-stop weeks that have seen enormous dramas (including a building evacuation owing to the ice storms) and amazing successes. Just thinking back over what an extraordinary year it has been.

Georgie Lucas isn't on Bluesky so it falls to me to advertise her first book, Massacres in Early Modern Drama, published by Manchester University Press in the Revels Companion Library series. You can read more (and buy it!) here: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526147301/

Yet again, absolute nonsense in attempts to counter ‘grade inflation’, and treating grades as a comparative/competitive measure. This ignores the fact that, with good pedagogy, a whole cohort can reach “A” standard, and *that’s a good thing*!

Brilliant www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster...

Academic departments deserve to be saved, supported, resourced, allowed to grow even if they're not "best in the country," "first in the REF," "top-ranked," "at a Russell Group uni," or whatever other austerity-brained nonsense senior managers have been using to flimflam you out of solidarity

127 years after the very first Arden Shakespeare play published in 1899, a new generation of editions begins today. The first 2 plays - Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar - are out now 🎉 Discover the Fourth Series: https://bit.ly/48RVXiA

*Out now!* This new edition of Edward II edited by @jmasten.bsky.social distils its importance for the history of queer sexuality, historical drama and modern performance alike. Get your copy here: https://bit.ly/4sSjOGh

Universities provide immense social and economic benefits for their cities and the UK. They provide soft power globally and support social mobility locally. Baffling that Labour are destroying this important sector through their intransigence.

Solidarity with all of my old colleagues at @uonucu.bsky.social ; it’s been horrible watching the consequences of destructive government policy and local mismanagement from afar over the last few years, and I really hope that the core of this amazing university can be salvaged.

This is a big one - one of my favourite journals publishing one of the first major outputs of my walking research. In the article 'Walking and Performances of Elite Masculinity' I establish a model for how the collective walking of men negotiates early modern gender politics. A big day! Link below

Exactly 2 weeks to go before the first volumes are here! 🎉

Our MBU Shakespeare & Performance first years put on Dream last night, directed by my colleagues Doreen Bechtol and Matt Davies, and even if I’m biased, it was one of the best productions I’ve ever seen of this play, for its intricate praxis of resistance via chaos: drpeterkirwan.com/2026/04/28/a...

Terri Bourus reviews The Public Theater's 2025 production of Twelfth Night, directed by Saheem Ali 🎭: publictheater.org/productions/... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/985859 📷: Joan Marcus

Jennifer A. Low reviews The Public Theater's 2025 production of Twelfth Night, directed by Saheem Ali 🎭: publictheater.org/productions/... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/985858 📷: Joan Marcus

Isabel Rose Azar reviews the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2024 production of Othello, directed by Tim Carroll 🎭: www.rsc.org.uk/othello/past... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/985856 📷: Johan Persson

Kathleen Mitchell reviews the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s 2025 production of Twelfth Night, directed by Brian Isaac Phillips 🎭: cincyshakes.com/on-stage/twe... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/985863 📷: Mikki Schaffner

Academic hot take: you’re only allowed to apply late penalties to student work if you have yourself met all of your deadlines within the last three years.

Isobel Strevens reviews the Red Rose Chain Theatre Company’s 2025 production of Hamlet, directed by Joanna Carrick 🎭: www.redrosechain.com/theatre-in-t... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/985852 📷: Bill Jackson

We’ve been pinching ideas off @shaxbull.bsky.social… (Also, huge thanks generally to @drpetekirwan.bsky.social and @kevinkilleen.bsky.social for being sounding boards in the early days of our thinking about the policies & processes “Sonance” will follow)

Folks heading home after #shakes2026 might enjoy a podcast I did with @drpetekirwan.bsky.social in November 2025, now online, for the OSU Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. We chat #earlymodern drama, performance, and digital scholarship. cmrs.osu.edu/resources/no...

Had such a wonderful time sharing @pointslikeaman.bsky.social as part of this year’s SAA Digital Exhibits! ✨ It was so wonderful to meet everyone and share my project so widely, and to hear from folks who already are using it! Many thanks to SAA for hosting PLAM this year! 🎩 #Shax2026

Thanks for the photo @saaupdates.bsky.social ! Btw, you can preorder the Canonical Misogyny paperback for 30% off with code PAPER30 😉

If you're at #shax2026 and you would like to write a performance review for @shaxbull.bsky.social, or you'd just like to find out more about it, then please come and say hello to me! I look like my profile picture (minus Paul Revere pointing at me) and I'd love to talk to you 🙂

I had the best time in Silence on Stage #Shax2026 — such a wide-ranging discussion of the connections between all of our papers! We covered the plays we wrote about, the plays we’ve been thinking about, & the plays that we would write about now (by way of Monty Python and Reduced Shakespeare, obvs).

My first experience of convening a seminar at @saaupdates.bsky.social could not have been better. Immense thanks to everyone who contributed to Baz Luhrmann's 'William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet' at Thirty seminar. Your papers, discussions and questions were all fantastic. #Shax2026

Take a look at Vanessa Morosco’s interview with the local Staunton podcast “The U is Silent; We Aren’t”, where she discusses how theatre is a radical act of community: www.instagram.com/reels/DHq0g-...

You can watch Aidan’s interview with the Utah Shakespeare Festival here: www.facebook.com/share/v/1E2V.... Aidan also performs as a singer-songwriter, and his most recent recordings can be streamed on Spotify: open.spotify.com/album/1JX0hP...

The Augusta Free Press reports on the ASC's dog adoption scheme, associated with the 2025 production of Two Gents: augustafreepress.com/news/staunto...

You can find audience reactions to the production on the ASC website americanshakespearecenter.com/2025/10/audi..., and take a look at Aidan’s website here: www.aidan-oreilly.com

Today’s Extra Credit focuses on Peter Kirwan’s interview with Aidan O'Reilly and Vanessa Morosco about Aidan's experience of being the first blind director to work at the American Shakespeare Center. Check out these open-access resources! 📰: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

How many of us have benefited from Pete's generous, insightful, and fulsome reviews over the years, both in our teaching and research? Incredible stuff. 👏

This weekend I posted my 796th, 797th, 798th, 799th, and 800th reviews on The BARDATHON, my blog which turns twenty years old next month, with the latest being Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet. I’m proud of my long work on the blog, and you can subscribe at this link: drpeterkirwan.com/the-bardathon/

Eleanor Glasspool reviews the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2025 production of Hamlet, dir. Rupert Goold 🎭: www.rsc.org.uk/hamlet/reviews 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981812 📷: Marc Brenner

Elizabeth Klett reviews 4th Wall Theatre Company’s 2025 production of Bedlam’s Hamlet, dir. Kim Tobin-Lehl 🎭: www.4thwalltheatreco.com/hamlet 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981810 📷: Gabriella Nissen

Sheila T. Cavanagh reviews Avant Bard Theatre’s 2025 production of The Magriad, or, The Tragedy of Queen Margaret, adapted and directed by Séamus Miller 🎭: avantbard.org/project/the-... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981816 📷: DJ Corey Photography

Terri Bourus reviews Theatre for a New Audience’s 2025 production of Henry IV, adapted by Dakin Matthews and directed by Eric Tucker 🎭: tfana.org/events/henry... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981813 📷: Gerry Goodstein

Remson DeJoseph reviews The Wasteland Theatre Company’s 2024 production of Richard the Ghoul, dir. Jonathan Thomas 🎭: www.wastelandtheatre.com/director-s-b... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981814 📷: Jessica-Star Hussiere

Connie Newstead reviews the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2025 production of Edward II, dir. Daniel Raggett 🎭: www.rsc.org.uk/edward-ii/ 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981811 📷: Helen Murray

Feel like the word “exclusive” risks losing its meaning somewhat in being attached to this piece. www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/f...

Justin B. Hopkins reviews Arlekin Player’s 2024 production of The Merchant of Venice, adapted and directed by Igor Golyak 🎭: www.merchantofveniceplay.com 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981817 📷: Pavel Antonov (The Merchant of Venice)

Laurie Higgins reviews The Jamie Lloyd Company’s 2024-25 production of The Tempest, dir. Jamie Lloyd 🎭: thejamielloydcompany.com/productions/ 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981819

Joan Raube-Wilson reviews the American Shakespeare Center’s 2024 production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, dir. Dawn Monique Williams 🎭: americanshakespearecenter.com/events/merry... 📰: muse.jhu.edu/article/981819 📷: October Grace Media

Moll Cutpurse, in Dekker and Middleton's The Roaring Girl, as "catalytic converter"! Read more in Sheila Coursey's essay published in our most recent Issues in Review on "Drama and Conversion," edited by @swittek.bsky.social (ET 28.2, Dec 2025). Access here: buff.ly/Odmf7UH

Hey! Scholars! If you're using someone's work in your class, sometimes it's nice to email them and tell them, because then they might feel good about their research instead of entirely crushed by the academic humanities' ongoing descent into the grave

Curious about how a 360 view of Shakespeare’s Globe is captured? A virtual tour is provided here, used exclusively as a resource in Globe teaching workshops: www.shakespearesglobe.com/learn/school...

Pye’s book, Unearthing Shakespeare: Embodied Performance and the Globe, is now open access at the Routledge website! Flip to Chapter 2 “Examining the Globe” or Chapter 7 “Energizing the Language” for the work that inspired her Shakespeare Bulletin article: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mon...

Today’s Extra Credit focuses on Valerie Clayman Pye’s article ““I have thee not, and yet I see thee still”: Shakespeare’s Globe, Augmented Reality, and Actor Training”. Check out these open-access resources to go along with this open-access article! 📰: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center: If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.

Oooh! So pleased to see Ellie Collins’ book out in our series!! Such wonderful repertory work! manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719090868/ CC @shakesinstitute.bsky.social

Starting today! (although, very regrettably, due to a recent change in university policy we are no longer able to stream the conference live on Zoom)