Congratulations from the Staging Beckett team to our colleague at Reading, PhD student Matthew McFrederick. In the last few days, Matthew has learned that he has been offered a fellowship to study at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, as part of the AHRC’s International Placement Scheme. I feel sure that he will return to us with wonderful new material.
Congratulations and best of luck for your research Matthew!
Introduction to the project
Welcome to the Staging Beckett blog.
Staging Beckett is a three year research project which started in September 2012, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and it is compiling a database of professional productions of Beckett’s plays in the UK and Ireland. We are already beginning to get a picture of who was staging Beckett, where and how, in major cities and in the regions of these islands. We will be recording interviews with theatre practitioners and exploring the different cultural or economic contexts of particular productions. We look forward to sharing our research with you, and to hearing from you via the blog or our various activities such as public talks, exhibitions or conferences.
Who are we?
The Staging Beckett project is led by the Universities of Reading and Chester in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The research team includes Matthew McFrederick (Reading), Anna McMullan (Reading), Trish McTighe (Reading), David Pattie (Chester), Graham Saunders (Reading) and David Tucker (Chester).
Upcoming events
Our first public event will be a conversation with the renowned British theatre director, Ian Rickson, on October 3rd, 2013, at 7.30pm, in the Minghella Building, Whiteknights campus, University of Reading.
Rickson directed Harold Pinter in Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at the Royal Court Theatre London, in 2006. He has also directed Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem with Mark Rylance as Johnny Rooster, and his productions of Pinter’s plays include Betrayal and, earlier this year, Old Times, with Kristen Scott Thomas, Lia Williams and Rufus Sewell.
Conferences
We will be holding three conferences as part of the project. The first one will be in April 2014, on Beckett and performance histories, the second in Chester in September 2014, on Beckett and the regions, and a final conference in April 2015 on Beckett and performance cultures.
Follow us for more news!
For more info on the Beckett Collection at the University of Reading see University of Reading Special Collections
For more info on research activities on Beckett at the University of Reading see Beckett at Reading
For more info on the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Theatre and Performance Collection see Victoria and Albert Museum’s Theatre and Performance Collection
