Henslowe Flyer

The papers of Philip Henslowe and his step son-in-law Edward Alleyn at Dulwich College constitute the world’s single largest archive of records on English theatres and drama in the age of Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton and their contemporaries.

In a lecture on Tuesday 24 May, Professor of Shakespearean and Early Modern Drama in the Department of English and American Literature at the University of Reading, Grace Ioppolo, will look at the vast range of theatrical enterprises of Henslowe and Alleyn, as well as their unprecedented access to royal, clerical and local London officials, and their collaboration with the leading dramatists, actors and other theatre personnel of the time. By drawing on documents in the Dulwich College archive, Professor Grace Ioppolo will argue that what we think of as ‘Shakespearean theatre’ was largely created by Henslowe and Alleyn.

Drinks will be served in the Lower Hall before and after the lecture.

Tickets £10, available from lectureseries@dulwich.org.uk.

6.50pm – 7.20pm, an informal talk on Edward Alleyn’s clothing by costumier Caroline Akselon in the Masters’ Library.

7.30pm – 8.30pm, lecture in the Great Hall.

Living in the wake of the Plague

Visitors can also view an exhibition in the Wodehouse Library on what life was like during outbreaks of the Black Death. Included are original letters from Edward Alleyn to his wife and documents relating to the closure of Philip Henslowe’s theatres. Artefacts covering local plague deaths (which included two ‘Poor Scholars’) will also be on display.