A project led by former University of Bristol Theatre Students, George Nichols and Hannah De Ville, has received an Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant. COVEN will be an accessible reinvention of two early modern witch plays: The Late Lancashire Witches and The Witch of Edmonton.
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Dr Eleanor Rycroft, is offering academic and dramaturgical support to the creative team during the research and development process, in order to workshop these texts with ten community groups across the country.
Together, the team will think about what made the plays so popular originally, and about their themes of gender, power, discrimination and othering. Following the workshops, there will be a week-long practical Research and Development with five actors at the University of Bristol to develop ideas that will form the basis of an adaptation of the plays.