About The Dutch Courtesan Website
Dutch Courtesan 2019 is part of the ‘Strangers and Aliens in London and Toronto: Sex Religion, and Xenophobia in John Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan' project that ran January through March 2019. This project included a full production of John Marston’s 1605 play, The Dutch Courtesan, a Rehearsal Workshop (23 February 2019), and a Conference (22-23 March 2019). We drew on work done in play rehearsals, workshops, and performances to unearth discoveries about the play’s text and its themes of gender, sex, religion, and foreignness, particularly exploring connections between early modern London and our own modern world.
Phase 1 of this website archives production materials (play programmes, photographic stills, and some production videos), notes from conference proceedings and study resources developed from our main project events, making the results of our work freely available to scholars, students, teachers, and creatives interested in The Dutch Courtesan, Marston, and the wider field of early modern drama, as well as Performance-as-Research (PAR) methods. Phase 1 of the website is now complete.
Phase 2 of the site (ongoing) will include director and dramaturge interviews, production music, a play synopsis and guide, and additional notes and extras from the play editors (including a note from Helen Ostovich looking at boys' friendships in the Toronto and Edward's Boys productions of the play). This content will help introduce the play and its contexts to those new to Marston and early modern drama and share further moments of discovery in rehearsal and performance.
In June 2020 we will include links to our special issue of Early Theatre with revised and peer-reviewed papers presented at the conference. In 2021 full copies of these proceedings will be made available in open-access format in the long term (although please note that Early Theatre has temporarily made all content open access through the COVID-19 pandemic).
Discoveries made in rehearsal and in workshop have also substantially supported editorial work on a new edition of the play by Helen Ostovich and Erin Julian for the upcoming Oxford University Press Complete Works of John Marston, General Editors Martin Butler (Leeds) and Matthew Steggle (Bristol).
See our Project Team or an overview of our Project Events.