Atena Bazargan
DARE Project: GEES Project (Girls on Early English Stages)
Program(s) of Study: English & Creative Writing
Project Supervisor: Deanne Williams
I hope that this research will shed light on the active role that girls had in the theatre and in the courts, challenging our notions of a previously male-dominated artistic space.
Project Description:
The GEES Project (Girls on Early English Stages) studies and highlights the significant involvement of girl actors in England from the Middle Ages to the Restoration. Continuing this research, I will be assisting Professor Deanne Williams in highlighting the active roles of girls and women in early English theatre, from medieval to Jacobean times, with a particular emphasis on the Elizabethan period. Through examining and studying archival records, and conducting a textual analysis of primary and secondary sources, my research will build on the evidence already compiled from the volumes of REED and the British Drama catalogues (as accessible through the database on geesproject.com). My task will be to focus on the Elizabethan period. Specifically, I will be in charge of the five volumes of John Nichols’ The Progresses and Processions of Queen Elizabeth I. These volumes contain important historical records, and it will be my responsibility to read through the archival material and primary sources to find and record instances of female performance. I will be compiling information about girl performers from Elizabeth I’s reign in order to expand and augment our current archive. After identifying, analyzing, and contextualizing these findings from the Nichols volumes, I will create entries on each identified instance of performance and upload them to the GEES database. Each entry contains the date and type of the performance, the performer, and identifies the historical/social context within which the performance occurred. My research will thus expand our understanding of girl performers in Elizabeth I’s reign and make it available to online users. I will compile information on the family and friendship networks of girl performers such that we may situate them within a specifically female genealogy and lineage. One of my goals is to create a prototype of this female-based network, so that we can have a visual, digital representation of the girl performers from the archival evidence that is on the GEES project website. My aim is to make our findings visually accessible through digital mapping software, so that every ‘point’ on the map represents a female performer, under whose name users can find a list of their performances and theatrical involvements.The Dean’s Award for Research Excellence (DARE) - Undergraduate enables our students to meaningfully engage in research projects supervised by LA&PS faculty members. Find out more about DARE.