Épisodes

  • Woman in the Moon: Written in the Stars
    Jul 21 2025
    • In this episode, hosts Joan Raube-Wilson and Jake Raiter get astrological as they lead us on a far out journey through the stars to investigate the astronomical underpinnings of Lyly's Women in the Moon. They explore Lyly's use of sources in creating the universe of this astrological sex comedy, particularly Robert Greene's Planetomachia and the curious "Astronomer's Game" once used as a training tool for Renaissance physicians! Can understanding the cosmos and the nuances of planetary alignment like they early moderns help us go deeper into Pandora's world?


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    19 min
  • Woman in the Moon: Jupiter? I Hardly Know Her
    Jul 21 2025

    In our final episode of Season 4, hosts Emily Bassett and Cole Graham zoom in on the figure of Jupiter inside of Lyly's Woman in the Moon specifically and in the context of early modern drama more generally. What does it mean when a major god like Jupiter shows up in your play? What kind of (mostly bad) behavior should the audience expect? And how do productions of these plays handle divine spectacle in practical terms? Join Emily and Cole for an excavation of performance choices and a close-reading of Woman in the Moon's concentrated production history. Featuring a scene from the plays as performed by guest actors Jake Raiter and Joan Raube-Wilson



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    21 min
  • Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs: Don Juan Demystified
    Jul 15 2025
    In this episode, we explore Spanish Golden Age gem, The Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs by Ana Caro. Our expert hosts Becca Westbrook and Megan Parlett hone in on the history and context of the Don Juan trope in literature and drama and then apply this understanding to an investigation into gender, honor, and disguise in Caro's extraordinary play. How can queer theory help illuminate the resonance of Caro's play for audiences today? This episode features special guest Tommy Hegarty, with music and audio editing by Westbrook.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    22 min
  • Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs: Collaborative Translation and Continental Contexts
    Jul 15 2025

    In this episode, intrepid host Trent Stephens is joined by guest expert Dr. Barbara Fuchs. Dr. Fuchs is Distinguished Professor of Spanish and English at UCLA and director of the Working Group on the Comedia in Translation and Performance and the Diversifying the Classics project. Dr. Fuchs shares details on the process of collaborative translation used to create the first English translation of Caro's play. Together, Stephens and Fuchs then unpack connections between English Renaissance drama and Spanish Golden Age plays, with an emphasis on the role of actress on the Spanish stage and look at how Caro converses with her contemporaries.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    29 min
  • Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs: Gendering Honor
    Jul 15 2025
    In this episode, hosts Brooke Crittenden and Louis Altman collide gender theory with Caro's play to think through the ways honor and space are gendered onstage and off. They introduce the notion of the mujer varonil and consider Caro's use of this trope in her creation of Leonor in comparison to the kinds of "manly women" created by her (male) contemporaries. How does honor look for women and men in Spanish Golden Age drama? And what do horror movies have to teach us about gendered honor?

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    20 min
  • Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs: Meet the Servants
    Jul 15 2025
    In this episode, host Nora Frankovich explores the wild and zany world of the servant characters in Caro's play thinking through the influence of Italian commedia dell'Arte on Spanish comedia. Frankovich is joined by special guest expert Anastasia Wilson. Wilson is a professor at Georgia State University and an educator, actor and devising artist with an advanced foundation in Physical Theatre. Together, Frankovich and Wilson compare and contrast Caro's deployment of servant characters to drive the plot of Courage with their continental commedia cousins. How might reading these characters through a feminist or justice-focused lens add layers of meaning for contemporary audiences of Caro's play?

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    17 min
  • The Changeling: Violent Intimacy
    Jul 7 2025

    In this episode, our hosts Gray Casterline and Scarlet Frishman Darling excavate the main plot of Thomas Middleton's The Changeling through the lens of both onstage violence and intimacy, using gender studies and queer theory as their guides. They close read key staging moments in the play across several productions to think about the staging required by the text and that which is implied by the story's context. Then, they talk with Charlene V. Smith, the Artistic Director of Brave Spirits Theatre in Washington, DC about the stellar production she directed for the company in 2018.


    A note on content: This episode includes discussions sexual violence, intimacy, concept of virginity, purity culture, and violence including the severing of limbs.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    31 min
  • The Changeling: Madness Onstage and Off
    Jul 7 2025

    In this episode, our hosts Aubree Gray and Grayson Fulp ford the murky streams of The Changeling's B-plot, through a deep dive into the context of mental illness, madness, and asylums in the early modern period. Through historical research, their deployment of disability studies, and a very depressing game of true or false, they ask critical and insightful questions about how to responsibly work with this challenging subplot in production today.


    A note on content: This episode includes in-depth discussion of mental illness, specifically madness, in the early modern period, including details on the mistreatment of the mentally ill, violence against women, and use of loaded language.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    13 min