Front Page | Introduction | A Brief History
Past Productions | Articles | Archive Gallery | Newsletter
Links | Contact Us
Current Show | Current Season
Support PLS
We are pleased to announce more projects, either already existing or at the press.
Queen’s Men Editions, which will be located on the University of Victoria’s Internet Shakespeare Editions web space, has The Chronical History of King Leir ready to go online as old-spelling and modern-spelling texts. Notes and introduction will follow by spring of 2009. Shortly thereafter, we hope to post The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth
Several editors are working on the other Queen’s Men texts to be published online over the next several years. Also being launched this fall at McMaster University and available to early drama classes world-wide is Performing the Queen’s Men, an interactive research web site with many performance clips from our productions of King Leir, Famous Victories, and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. The web site was largely created by Peter Cockett with multi-media creation and editing by Stacey Wheal.
Our paper publication, Locating
the Queen’s Men, 1583-1603,
edited by Helen Ostovich,
Holger Schott Syme and
Andrew Griffin, is at Ashgate
Publishing Company, available
for purchase in spring 2009.
- Helen Ostovich
Next February/March we will be presenting Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes, an early Elizabethan romance that tells the tale of two wandering knights on quests for honour and the hands of fair ladies. Guided by Peter Cockett, the project will begin with a one-week “Renaissance Boot Camp” after which the actors will work on their parts individually before coming together for the first performance. After a short rehearsal period, the play will then be presented publicly and the process will be filmed for use on the the SQM web site.
The day itself went smoothly as the moving crew handled hundreds of boxes of costumes, props, and papers with amazing speed. But that was only the prologue: I arrived at our basement space to find the renovations far from finished, and the promised new furniture consisted of two tables – no chairs!
Within the next few weeks we acquired chairs, shelves, a file cabinet and bulletin board, and the office began to come together. It took a bit longer to get racks for the costumes, but we now have a flexible space where costumes, fabrics, masks, etc. can live together, with the archives stored close by.
In December I was joined by our new office manager,
John Cowling. Some of you will remember John's father,
Doug, who was Artistic Director of PLS in the late 80s.
John has made the office much more organized and is
working on updating our web site, beginning with setting
up a new, simpler web address: www.plspls.ca.
- Linda Phillips
Buchanan and I decided it was time to pay them a visit. As Erik clambered around with a measuring tape and I snapped photos, we were reminded that we at PLS are the guardians of a unique and priceless treasure. Our wagons are a tangible connection with a theatrical tradition dating back hundreds of years. Even disassembled and dusty their hand-carved trims and bright colours are a lasting tribute to Reed Needles and Steve Putzel, the original “wainwrights” who created them from old farm wagons for York 1977, and to the many PLS “old hands” who have maintained them since.
As we look ahead to the Chester Cycle in 2010, we anticipate the excitement of a new generation who will be able to participate in making theatrical history come alive.
Meantime, one of these wagons sneaked quietly out of the barn to lend its sturdy support to yet another such production. The story is below.
With help from PLS veteran Erik Buchanan, students helped tow the wagon from its storage space at Joker's Hill, set it on its wheels, and used it to perform an excerpt from the York Last Judgment play. Among the highlights was a flame-throwing devil... and (seen in rehearsal) an ascent into Heaven, helped by the wagon’s trap door.
The whole experience was recorded by a team of
student videographers, footage that will increase PLS’
ever-expanding educational video records.
- Jennifer Roberts-Smith
The 2007-2008 PLS season featured three successful co-productions with people who share our enthusiasm for Early Drama: the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama (The True Tragedy of Richard the Third), Sine Nomine (The Parliament in Heaven), and Toronto Masque Theatre (A Royal Wedding Masque). Our only “stand-alone” show, Ram Alley, was produced at the Robert Gill Theatre belonging to the Drama Centre. We are happy to continue our long association with the Drama Centre in this season's co-production of Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes.
As in all our previous productions of the great Mystery Cycles, Chester 2010 will depend on the co-operation of many different groups who come together in Toronto to perform the twenty-four episodes that make up the threeday cycle. In May of 2010, using a text edited by Alexandra Johnston, this international gathering will attempt to rediscover the version performed by the guilds of Chester under the direction of their Town Council in 1572.
Once again we offer a two-play season. The first programme “The Trial of Mary and Joseph” and “The Woman Taken in Adultery” is a double bill, both plays dealing with the tribulations of women in Biblical times. The enclosed flyer tells all, and should (we hope) get you racing to see this presentation: two treats for the price of one.
Our second offering, February 25 to March 8, 2009, is a co-production with the Graduate Centre for Study of Drama. Clyomon and Clamydes, is a 16C “quest” play involving two knights and two ladies and a story about love and honour. A not-to-be-missed comedy production, it represents another selection from the repertoire of the the celebrated Elizabethan theatre troupe, The Queen’s Men company.
We are happy to bring you some very good and important news: the University of Toronto’s faculty of Arts and Science recognizes PLS as a research unit of the Centre for Medieval Studies.
As you may know, PLS began as ‘Professor Leyerle’s Seminar’ in 1964, during the first graduate seminar in medieval drama taught in the U of T by Professor John Leyerle.
For the forty-plus years since, PLS has wandered, so to speak, in the academic wilderness.
Now at last, PLS has received recognition as the performance wing of a new addition to the Centre for Medieval Studies: The ‘Centre for Performance Studies in Early Theatre’. Sany Johnston will be both chair of the PLS Board and co-ordinator of the new Centre. This gives us academic respectability and will facilitate our efforts to win research grants such as the one awarded to the Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men Project. For the foreseeable future, nothing else about the organization of PLS will change.
We owe many thanks to David Klausner who, in his capacity as Vice-Dean, Interdisciplinary Affairs, steered our application through the Arts and Science process.
First it was the abandoned shed in the parking lot; then, the old furnace room at the Centre for Medieval Studies and the attics and other corners of basement space -- all by the grace and favour of the long-suffering directors of the Centre.
Now that we are a recognized research centre of the CMS, Arts and Science has officially allocated us space in the new CMS ‘digs’ in the Lillian Massey Building at the corner of University Avenue and Bloor Street. As well as a small office we have storage space for costumes, props and our archives.
But the really exciting possibility is the use of a large, multi-purpose room on the third floor as a permanent performance space for our indoor productions!
However, the move means we must reduce what we have by at least a third. Please see the notices about the archives and the yard sale in the following pages.
Our upcoming move has forced us to dig out the boxes of archival material stored for years in the Centre’s attic. We are now trying to remove duplicates and get the papers ready for a proper archival assessment.
If you have any historic PLS material (especially from our first twelve years -- 1964 to 1976), please let Sandy Johnston know at ajohnsto@chass.utoronto.ca or (416) 585-4409.
We are especially interested in anything from that first seminar in 1964 and the early years of the 1970s.
PLS is moving to a new home, but before we go, many treasures from our vast accumulation of Medieval and Renaissance play props, costumes, and set pieces must be sold . . . at very attractive prices!
For more information, call 416-978-5096 or email us at plspls@chass.utoronto.ca
This year, it's the two versions of Richard III. Join Jennifer Roberts-Smith for a day staging excerpts from both Shakespeare's and the Queen's Men's plays.
No previous acting experience is needed: the emphasis is on fun and exploration.
Workshop date: Saturday, June 9 – 10am to 4pm.
To register: contact Kim Yates at crrs.vic@utoronto.ca or Kathy in the PLS office at plspls@chass.utoronto.ca or 416-978-5096.
Our first priority is to finalize the editions of the each of these plays in old spelling and modern spelling, with annotations and introductions, so that the plays can be put online.
The Queen’s Men Editions, under the general editorship of Helen Ostovich (McMaster), will be part of the electronic site, as will Internet Shakespeare Editions, under the executive editorship of Michael Best (University of Victoria, British Columbia). We have been assigned a separate space on the ISE electronic platform, and hope to have the first three plays up by summer’s end. This site is free, open to worldwide use. Once this task is accomplished, we hope to continue with the six other identified plays of the Queen’s Men.
Our next task is to have production notes prepared by our director Peter Cockett (McMaster) added into the online play commentaries. We will also add illustrations from our productions – still photos and (pending negotiation) film clips.
Peter will also be working with Holger Syme (University of Toronto at Mississauga, our executive producer of video releases of the plays in production), Helen Ostovich, and Geoffrey Rockwell (McMaster), our multimedia advisor, to generate DVD archival copies of the productions of Fall 2006 from our best filmed footage. Copies of these archival DVDs will be distributed to libraries or research units without charge. We will also select scenes and create commentary for a DVD on the pedagogical and research values of last fall’s work. That DVD is primarily intended for use by graduate students and instructors as a teaching tool for classroom or library use. For undergraduate students, we will also prepare a streaming website as a simpler, more easily accessible and searchable resource.
This summer, we have acquired the services of a professional DVD technician who will work with Geoffrey Rockwell and Holger Syme on the pedagogical DVD. Peter Cockett, Geoffrey Rockwell, and Helen Ostovich have successfully applied for a grant from the Centre for Lifelong Learning (McMaster) to pay a graduating 4th-year student (Honours English and Multimedia at McMaster) to create the website, working closely with our professional.
At the same time, Holger Syme and Helen Ostovich, assisted by Andrew Griffin, are preparing a collection of essays on the Queen’s Men, based on last fall’s conference.We expect this volume to be published within the year.
Finally, we are preparing another play in the “Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men” list, Shakespeare’s Richard III -- as we understand its evolution from The Queen’s Men’s The True Tragedy of Richard III -- edited by Jennifer Roberts-Smith (University of Windsor), for a workshop in June and, we hope, a full production in the fall. That play will be the next text mounted on The Queen’s Men Editions by summer 2008, possibly with film footage or archival DVD if funding becomes available. Further donations from PLS supporters for that purpose will be welcomed.
FALL PRODUCTION: Shakespeare's Richard III a co-production with the Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama produced and directed by Jennifer Roberts-Smith. This play, clearly dependent on the Queen's Men's Richard III, will complete the productions of our Queen's Men project by applying what we have learned about the performance practice of the Queen's Men to this early Shakespeare play. This production will inaugurate our new space in the Lillian Massey Building.
CHRISTMAS SHOW: The Parliament of Heaven and the Annunciation from the N-Town Plays directed by Janet Ritch. The Parliament contains an important medieval motif of the debate among the four daughters of God about the salvation of man's soul. There are interesting French analogies to this debate as well as one in the Castle of Perseverance. The Annunciation contains one of the most challenging stage directions in all medieval drama and also presents the possibility that Mary might say 'no'. The Parliament will be remounted in May to be part of Tafelmusik's Toronto-wide project Sacred Spaces/Sacred Circles.
WINTER: Westward Ho! by Thomas Dekker et al (1604-5). This play was first performed by the Children of St Paul's.
JUNE: A Jacobean Court Masque performed in the Inns of Court in 1613. Masques were performed at the court of King James and featured words, music, dance and lavish costumes and sets often designed by Inigo Jones. This production will be based on the records from the Inns of Court that will be being edited at that time by Records of Early English Drama. Peter Cockett will direct for PLS in a co-production with the Toronto Masque Theatre and REED. One of the three performances will be in the context of a major Renaissance Fair at Victoria College.
Anyone interested in participating in the production by bringing one of the twenty-four episodes should contact PLS (plspls@chass.utoronto.ca) as soon as possible. Wagons will be supplied.