Villanova Theatre is hiring! We’ve just opened our search for a TT Assistant Professor of Playwriting position. Details below, and very happy to answer questions. jobs.villanova.edu/postings/36362

Well anyway, here’s Wonderwall.

Today’s Extra Credit focuses on Alice Dailey and Chelsea Phillips’s “Making (Ambitious, Impractical, Interdisciplinary) Dreams Come True: The Spanish Tragedy at Villanova”. Check out these open-access resources from Alice & @chelseaphillips.bsky.social 📰: muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

Thrilled to have a piece reflecting on our 2024 Spanish Tragedy out in the brand new issue of Shakespeare Bulletin alongside three other great missives from the rehearsal room! The Spanish Tragedy evangelism continues💀💀💀

Shakespeare Bulletin@shaxbull.bsky.social · 4mo ago

NEW ISSUE KLAXON: Shakespeare Bulletin 44.1 is now published via Project Muse! Find the first issue of a planned two-part issue featuring scholar-practitioners reflecting on their rehearsal room work in educational and professional contexts. Check it out here 📰: muse.jhu.edu/issue/57024

Very pleased to announce that I’ve been promoted to Full Professor. I'm deeply grateful to the community at Villanova for supporting my work, and to the many friends and fellow travelers beyond my institution who make my life and work better.

Prepping for #ASECS26 and spending an inordinate amount of time on paper titles and attempting to riff on the divorced beheaded died rhyme but about Addison's CATO.

Take your seats, silence your phones, and, whatever you do, PLEASE refrain from climbing onstage! Check out this week's #theatertthursday on the stage loungers, audience riots, and meddling managers of the London Stage: blogs.uoregon.edu/londonstage/... #digitalhumanities #18thc #theaterhistory

Poetry so bad it drove me back to social media: “Renown shews her Helen in dingy tradition And Hebe retreats, to avoid competition” (xi) “When the insincere praise, Desolation must follow; As Serpents pre-slaver that victim they’d swallow.” (xiii)

In case this is useful information to anyone I know, the American Musical Theater Archives youtube channel has a huge assortment of clips and entire shows from American Musical Theater (back to Gold Diggers of 1929!).

American Musical Theater Archives

All videos have been digitized and uploaded by the American Musical Theater Archives Project. To make a tax deductible donation to this 501c3, please visit the link below. All videos are for educati...

youtube.com

First Preview tonight is already SOLD OUT! We open May 3rd, and run through May 18th. Act fast to get your tickets now! www.philartistscollective.org/cato.html

On Wednesday, I'll be at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philly with a bunch of awesome people to discuss CATO, an eighteenth-century play woven into the fabric of our early republic. Come join us! @r18collective.bsky.social www.amrevmuseum.org/events/amrev...

Longwood Gardens—particularly taken with the blown tulips straight out of a Dutch still life!

My kid is 3 and already his first question every morning is “is it Friday?”

The coolest thing I’ve seen today is that a bunch of volunteer public health professionals and developers have restored the CDC website from before January 20th 2025. This differs from an archive in that they want to rebuild the links between pages and replicate the full website.

Tra-lil my hearts! It’s pancake day. Ring ‘em (pancake bells) if ya got ‘em.

Something we can do. A little goes further than you might think: mutualaidsudan.org

SUDAN MUTUAL AID COALITION

mutualaidsudan.org

"from half past two to half past four I sit in state—the remainder of the day has so much the reverse of dignity that retirement and concealment is requested for my friends’ convenience as well as for my own." --Elizabeth Inchbald, introverted queen

Absolute chaos of stories in this memoir-- 1) actor didn't have enough plates to break in a scene and so snatched the wig off his scene partner and threw it into the air. 2) another actor swapped an unpopular song last minute for an alternative, not realizing....

Reynolds' favorite punctuation mark was the comma. “Drury Lane, and Covent Garden, were almost forgotten in the performances at Richmond House; and...were considered, by crowded, and fashionable audiences, equal, if not superior, to Kemble, Lewis, Mrs. Siddons, and the present Countess of Derby.”

Why could young William Pitt get it, and why am I just learning this? Because I get all my information from satirical prints.

At the Folger today, so watch this space for a scrolling break. First up, politician John Wilkes' self-own, as recounted by playwright Frederick Reynolds: “That he required a fortnight to talk away his face” (qtd 20)--apparently didn't stop his popularity with the ladies, however.

Historian snark to lighten your timeline: “Mrs. Wells of Covent Garden was always always in the news. She was certainly better known to readers of newspapers than any other performer, for there was hardly a day they were not called upon to weep over her latest misfortune.”

Just me or is Die Hard more of a Christmas Movie than The Family Stone?

Staged reading of Sir Anthony Love tonight with the fine folks of Philadelphia Artists’ Collective💙💙💙

Three years ago I was having the best shower of my entire life post giving birth. It was so good. Also happy birthday to our little delight.

This morning my almost-3-year-old gathered up a bunch of hangers and put them on a doorknob. When his dad—a notorious punster—asked what they were doing, kiddo said "just hanging out” 💀💀💀

Who wants to start a Philly chapter?

Ryan Haas@ryanjhaas.bsky.social · 2y ago

"I feel like yelling about it." Portland remains on the cutting edge of our times.

Thought I’d make my first post both positive and useful-so here’s a list of all of the free-to-view titles now available on the British Newspaper Archive: blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2024/09/19/a...

List of Free to View Pages | British Newspaper Archive

Working in partnership with the British Library, here we present a list of all newspaper pages included in our free to view newspaper collection.

blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

Hello new followers! I’m a dramaturg and historian of early modern and 18th-century British drama. Current focus is theatre finance, media, and gossip. I also write on the history of pregnancy. Follow along if you like your existential dread peppered with historical anecdotes and juicy tidbits.