Staging The Rivals

This YIAF funded project staged a Georgian play at two heritage venues, in collaboration with the university’s Drama Society. Students premiered the play at Richmond’s Georgian Theatre Royal (20 June 2019) and performed a second show (21 June 2019) at Mansion House in York. Both performances were sold out. At the start of the performance, Chloe Wigston Smith delivered a short, interactive lecture on the Georgian playhouse with specific emphasis on the behaviour of audiences; this lecture follows on from the CECS organized academic workshop at Richmond in 2016 and from the school education pack that was a learning outcome from that workshop. In the lecture, Smith used an immersive learning approach to encourage audience members to adopt some of the behaviours and manners of historical audiences at Georgian plays. Audience members also used props including wigs, fans and masks during both performances.