Past Marlowe Infotainment

Play Readings

Information about staged reading events and some Renaissance play reading groups, particularly those who regularly read Marlowe plays. Some of these groups have remained active during, or restarted after, the Covid pandemic. Others no longer organise events, but the details and links may still be of interest.

Bankside Rose Readathon [2024]

• Play Reading Group: THE ROSE READATHON VII
• Plays: A selection of Marlowe, Shakespeare & Jonson
• Date: Saturday 21 September 2024 from 12:00 to 21:00.
• Venue: The Rose Theatre, Bankside, 56 Park Street, London, SE1 9AS [Map]. Nearest Station: London Bridge.
• Tickets: Available for purchase online with funds being raised for the Rose Revealed Project. To read in a play: £10, or £2.50 for students. Audience Members: £5.
• Summary: A hugely popular event which began in 2014, The Rose Playhouse on Bankside has resumed its annual play reading marathon after the Covid pandemic and building work to raise money for the Rose Revealed Project. Come and join professional actors and take part in one (or more!) of six plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson, some of which were originally performed on this very site. Starting at midday, six plays will be read in edited one-hour versions by invited actors and the public alike. Parts will be drawn out of a hat. At the end of the allotted hour, regardless of whether the play has finished, it will be stopped and the next one will begin.
• Schedule:
  12:00 Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe;
  13:30 Macbeth by William Shakespeare;
  15:00 Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare;
  16:30 The Alchemist by Ben Jonson;
  18:00 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare;
  19:30 Hamlet by William Shakespeare.
• Website Links: The Rose Playhouse on Bankside | Enjoy a virtual tour through a reconstructed model of The Rose by Visualising Lost Theatres.

Dido - White Bear, London [2023]

• Play: Dido, Queen of Carthage
• Dates: Tuesday 12 December 2023.
• Performance Time: 19:30.
• Venue: White Bear Theatre, 138 Kennington Park Road, London, SE11 4DJ. [Map & Directions]
• Tickets: Priced £16 | £12 concessions or £45 to see all five plays, available online.
• Summary: The Beyond Shakespeare Winter Revels 2023 presents a live play-reading of Dido, Queen of Carthage written by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe. "The Beyond Winter Revels, a celebration selection box of shows from our repertoire. From Marlowe's famous tragedy of Dido, through famous historical characters in Cleopatra, via true crime in Arden of Faversham and a gothic proto-horror story in Beware the Cat, to the chaotic comedy of a story that comes to life in Old Wives' Tale – we've a show for you. You can sample one play or, for a discount price, catch them all! Live play readings, recording for the Beyond Shakespeare podcast, for one week only from 12-16 December. Dido, Queen of Carthage: A tragedy of a doomed love affair between the Queen of Carthage and Aeneas, survivor of the Trojan war, who has to choose between love and his destiny, as mapped out by the gods."
• Website Links: Beyond Shakespeare Company presents a live reading of Dido, Queen of Carthage at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington, London as part of The Beyond Winter Revels 2023 - a week of live play-readings.

MarText Workshops [2018-]

• Reading Group: MARTEXT
• Plays: Marlowe and his contemporaries.
• Date: Fortnightly or monthly play reading workshops at 18:00 on a Monday evening.
• Venue: Since Covid, the workshops have been online via Zoom. Prior to that they were held at The Rose Playhouse or The Anchor on Bankside in London.
• Tickets: Free participation open to all. Follow Ildi Solti on Twitter for details and Zoom link.
• Summary: The Martext workshops are organised by Dr Ildi Solti and Dr Jo Hill of the Marlowe Society. Attendees can join in reading a play by Marlowe or one of his contempories for about an hour, after which a discussion takes place on aspects of the play's original staging practices. Everyone is welcome, and absolutely no acting experience is required! It is helpful if attendees have access to the relevant play text.
• Website Links: Ildi Solti on Twitter | The Marlowe Society.

The Marlowe Sessions, Canterbury [2022]

• Plays: The Marlowe Sessions
• Date: Thursday 02 June to Saturday 25 June 2022.
• Venue: Malthouse Theatre, Malthouse Road, Canterbury, CT2 7JA. [Map & Directions]
• Performances: Afternoons at 13:30 or 14:00; evenings at 19:30 on dates as follows:
  • Dido, Queen of Carthage with Thallissa Teixera in the title role: 02-04 June;
  • Marlowe's Poetry: 05, 12 & 19 June;
  • The Jew of Malta with Adrian Schiller as Barabas and Eleanor Wylde as Abigail: 10-11 June;
  • Tamburlaine the Great Part I with Alan Cox in the title role: 10-11 June;
  • Edward II with Jack Holden in the title role and Mark Rice-Oxley as Gaveston: 17-18 June;
  • Tamburlaine the Great Part II with Alan Cox in the title role: 17-18 June;
  • Doctor Faustus with Dominic West as Faustus and Talulah Riley as Mephistopheles: 24-25 June;
  • The Massacre at Paris with Michael Maloney as the Duke of Guise and Nancy Carroll as Catherine de Medici: 24-25 June.
• Tickets: £15 to £40 bookable online at the Malthouse Theatre website.
• Reviews: Drama & Theatre; Kent Online review of Doctor Faustus.
• Summary: The Marlowe Sessions, produced by L6L21, presents all of Marlowe's works at The Malthouse Theatre in Canterbury, an award-winning £13m renovation at the heart of Marlowe's alma mater, The King's School. Performance Directors include Phillip Breen (Royal Shakespeare Company), Stephen Unwin (Rose Theatre Kingston) and Dr Abigail Rokison-Woodall (Shakespeare Institute), with original music composed by Tarek Merchant. "A cast of leading expert Elizabethan actors and some of the biggest names in British theatre are coming together for a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of the works of Christopher Marlowe, a reimagining of Elizabethan Theatre's enfant terrible. Poet, Playwright, and Provocateur, Marlowe was the Godfather of English blank verse. A prodigious and controversial talent, by the time of his violent death at the age of 29, he had already written and produced a collection of hugely commercially successful and popular plays together with a trove of lascivious poems that had a profound effect on Elizabethan Theatre and his contemporary writers, his work still influencing drama, poetry and literature today. Now, 450 years after the bloody wave of sectarian violence that inspired what is considered one of his final works – The Massacre At Paris – an all-star cast will lead 'script in hand', deconstructed performances of Marlowe's attributed works with a minimalist set and wardrobe, supported by authentic live musical accompaniment. With limited tickets available for the short run of shows, each performance is to be captured using the latest Immersive Audio technologies and to be made available in 2023. With actors interacting within the audience, coming among them to whip up a response and make the crowd an integral part of the lively reimagining of one of English Drama's founding fathers, you'll experience Elizabethan Theatre like never before."
• Website Links: The Marlowe Sessions at the Malthouse Theatre.

Read Not Dead at The Globe [1995-2019]

• Events: READ NOT DEAD
• Organiser: Shakespeare's Globe
• Dates: The Read Not Dead events stopped during the Covid pandemic, but will hopefully return soon.
• Performance Times: A full day event, usually on a Sunday, some ten or so times a year.
• Venue: Shakespeare’s Globe, 21 New Globe Walk, Bankside, London SE1 9DT. [Map & Directions]
• Tickets: Available online once events announced.
• Marlowe Readings: The following Marlowe plays have been the subject of Read Not Dead events:
  • The Jew of Malta directed by Joanne Howarth on Sunday 03 May 1998;
  • Tamburlaine the Great Part I directed by Ellie Jones on Sunday 14 March 2004;
  • Tamburlaine the Great Part II directed by Joyce Branagh on Sunday 28 March 2004;
  • The Massacre at Paris directed by James Wallace on Sunday 18 September 2011.
• Reviews: Peter Kirwan (UoN Bardathon) - various play readings 2010-2017.
• Summary: Shakespeare's Globe has organised a number of Read Not Dead play reading events each year since 1995, only curtailed by the Covid pandemic in 2020, and hopefully to restart shortly. A lesser-known Elizabethan or Jacobean play is chosen, and the director and group of actors has the morning to prepare a staged script-in-hand reading to an audience in the afternoon. An educational lecture often accompanies the event. "Read Not Dead is a multi-decade project, one in which we plan to perform every single 'unknown' play that has survived in print, from the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558, to the closing of the theatres in 1642. Some plays from history deserve to be read, not dead. The series was bornin 1995 by by Patrick Spottiswoode (Director, Globe Education). Over the last 25 years, the project has seen over 240 readings of 'forgotten' plays, staged by professional actors, most recently in our Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and prior to 2014 in the Nancy Knowles Lecture Theatre. The project has also been known to head out on tour via our Read Not Dead: On The Road series – locations so far have included London's Inns of Court, Penshurst Place and Gardens (Kent) and Latitude and Wilderness Festivals. Revived in front of a live audience, these play readings are always instinctive and adrenaline-driven, as actors and audience share in the excitement of unearthing a work of art."
• Website Links: Shakespeare's Globe presents Read Not Dead at the Sam Wanamaker Indoor Playhouse | Full archive of Read Not Dead events (with notes on each play) | Records of Plays 1567-1642.

The Paper Stage [2014-18]

• Play Reading Group: THE PAPER STAGE
• Organiser: Dr Harry Newman.
• Dates: The Paper Stage reading events ran from 2014 to 2018. You can also follow @ThePaperStage Twitter account which is still active.
• Venues: Starting at the University of Kent Gulbenkian Bar in Canterbury, Kent [Map & Directions], the Paper Stage later spread its wings with events at the Royal Holloway University of London in Egham, Surrey, and Il Palcoscenico di Carta in Mantua, Italy.
• Booking: No entrance fee or booking required. Those wishing to read a part could contact The Paper Stage organisers in advance. Listeners were also very welcome.
• Summary: The Paper Stage was a public play-reading group started in Canterbury by Dr Harry Newman, dedicated to the extraordinary and diverse drama of the Renaissance. It consisted of monthly events focused on different early modern plays, offering you the chance to experience this golden age of theatre through lively and experimental group readings that placed you at the heart of the plays. Harry took Paper Stage to the Royal Holloway in Surrey, James Cavalier taking over the reins in Canterbury, and both groups linking up with Il Palcoscenico di Carta ('The Stage of Paper') in Mantua, Italy. Readings of Doctor Faustus in all three locations in September & October 2015 were the first result of this collaboration. There were also readings of Marlowe's The Jew of Malta in Canterbury (23 June 2014) and Surrey (13 October 2016).
• Website Links: Paper Stage UK, also on Twitter | Il Palcoscenico di Carta.