READ [RED] not DEAD: A Reading of The Belle’s Stratagem

The Read Not Dead concept was created in 1995 by Patrick Spottiswoode as Director of Globe Education at Shakespeare’s Globe in London to revive “forgotten plays.” Staged by professional actors, these performances have been presented at the Wannamaker Playhouse with scripts in hand and are about bringing to life plays and authors that were popular in the past but would otherwise not reach modern audiences. Other venues have imitated the Read Not Dead format, and in 2023, we put our spin on it as well, with our hilarious RED NOT DEAD reading of Arden of Faversham at the Student Scholar Showcase. It was so successful, we repeated our experiment last year with the medieval play Everyman, in the 2024 SSS. This year, we'll repeat the fun with the eighteenth century comedy by Hannah Crowley, The Belle's Stratagem, which explores men and women struggling with their roles in relationships. While we will have two rehearsals, most of the excitement of the project will be the relatively spontaneous decisions readers will have to make about their characters, as well as the reactions that audience members will have as they watch, and the way in which those reactions might/will interact with and have an impact upon the performance as a whole. In other words, while we’re going to rehearse, the real magic, even more so than when a play is thoroughly rehearsed, takes place once the audience enters the equation. So the performance is both a showcase, something relatively prepared and presented, but also very much an experiment, the results of which can’t be entirely known or anticipated until the day. Everyone, actors and audience, will be actively engaged in and watching research happen! We will have a short Q&A + discussion period after the reading.