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The impact of the research has two elements:
Romeo & Juliet in Performance: collaboration with the organisation Film Education on the production of a DVD-based interactive teaching resource for GCSE English (2013).
Jacobean City Comedy. The editing/adaptation, rehearsing, public performances, and filming of Thomas Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters and John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan (2011 and 2013). The first project has proved a significant teaching resource with more than 1700 schools nationwide already using it in their teaching. The second project entails significant public engagement through performances, workshops and talks, and educational outreach events, while a website further facilitates and tracks on-going discussion between scholars, theatre professionals and the wider public.
Dr Lucy Munro's consultancy and public engagement work with Shakespeare's Globe and King Edward VI School has brought her cutting-edge research on early modern theatre history into the public domain, helping to shape not only broader understandings of this field in the culture at large but also the performative and material specifics of its contemporary production. Dr Munro's research focuses in particular on the places in which plays were performed, the companies that performed them, and the ways in which theatrical repertories were constructed.
Professor Tiffany Stern's research into 16-18th Century theatre performance has restored a significant element of the cultural heritage to public understanding and has led to the creation of new cultural capital through her influence on present-day theatrical interpretations of Early Modern texts in England and America. She has also influenced the construction and use of theatrical spaces in both countries through her work as a historical advisor to theatre companies and cultural organisations. These direct influences have been supported by educational work with the general public and schools, in the form of lectures, podcasts, and interviews with newspapers and journals.
Jackson has provided professional enhancement for directors and actors by bringing his research-led insight into the texts and acting traditions of Shakespearean theatre to bear on the preparation of scripts for performances. He has achieved this through collaboration during rehearsals, working at a detailed level of interpretation and performance. His research has also enhanced cultural enrichment for audiences through such forms of public engagement as essays in theatre programmes.
Academics at King's have long been involved in the editing of Shakespeare. Their editions have benefited school students and teachers, general readers, and theatre practitioners. Here we describe the impact which two King's-edited plays have had on theatrical performances and cultural life. Both were published in the Arden Shakespeare series, the general editorship of which has been located at King's for nearly 30 years. Hamlet and King Henry the Eighth, edited by Ann Thompson (co-editor, with Neil Taylor) and Gordon McMullan respectively, were used in major theatrical productions by the RSC in 2009 and Shakespeare's Globe in 2010. Impact is demonstrable in sales figures, directors' statements, viewing figures, and in related media appearances by Thompson and McMullan.
Great Writers Inspire (www.writersinspire.org) is a JISC funded project designed by Smith, Williams and Beasley in collaboration with IT services to expand the Oxford English Faculty's open educational resources on the web. Prompted by the success of Smith's Approaching Shakespeare podcast lectures (2010), GWI represents a systematic approach to creating, gathering and curating online research content targeted directly at students and teachers in secondary schools, further education, lifelong learning, and universities. Combining tailor-made podcasts, curated eBooks, audio talks, video files, and scholarly essays, GWI and AS have brought the Faculty's research to a global audience of over 740,000.
Departmental staff Mike Pearson, Mike Brookes and Simon Banham conceived, designed and directed theatre productions of Aeschylus's The Persians (2010) for NTW's launch season and Coriolan/us for NTW in the World Shakespeare Festival/London 2012 at sites outside the auditorium.
The impacts of these productions are upon:
1) Cultural life — in generating new forms of artistic expression, delivering innovative performance products, and enriching public appreciation, understanding and imagination;
2) Policy and practice — in enhancing the status of NTW, informing and influencing programming and demonstrating that work of international standard can be produced regionally;
3) Professional practice — in pioneering and contributing original ideas, methods and approaches.
When Hand and Wilson commenced research into Grand-Guignol in the late 1990s, it was a neglected topic in academic studies and a largely forgotten or misunderstood form in both theatrical circles and the popular imagination. Hand and Wilson have unraveled the myths surrounding the Grand-Guignol to explain in unprecedented depth this unique phenomenon in popular theatre and horror culture. Hand and Wilson have had a major role in the renaissance of the form in academia and also in the professional theatre and media. Their research has enjoyed extensive media coverage and the plays the authors have published have been performed internationally.
Cummings's grasp of the poetry [of Macbeth] is so complete, and his raw emotional immersion in it is so total, that the audience remains absolutely gripped by the narrative; and unable to resist the sense of being pulled by the story towards the very brink of hell... (The Scotsman 16/6/13, Joyce McMillan)
If the whole thing was disbanded tomorrow, [Black Watch] would ensure the National Theatre of Scotland's place not just in the history of Scottish theatre but theatre everywhere. (The Times, 2010).
Black Watch and Macbeth are productions that are infused with the insights of Ros Steen's practice-based research on the voice in theatre. Steen's research takes as its starting point the voice work of Alfred Wolfsohn, Roy Hart and Nadine George, placing the unique connection of the individual's voice to the self at the centre of the creative process in production. Her research, which has been developed since 1997 and is unique in theatre, ensures a visceral and transformative experience for performers and audiences alike.
The impact of her work is felt within individual productions; in their critical reception; and in the development in Scotland of an integrated community of practice embracing writers, actors and directors — a positive creative ecology that has helped to radicalise views of what is possible in the theatre.
Anne Featherstone's ongoing, scholarly research into neglected popular performance practices of the 19th Century has had public impacts well beyond the borders of academia. Popular media interest in her initial, academic publications prompted Featherstone to explore the popular historical novel as an alternative form for the dissemination of her historical research. Her two fiction-based outputs to date have translated original, historical research into the transnational domain of murder mystery fiction, and have been published in French, Italian and (soon) Portuguese versions, as well as in English. Growing recognition of Featherstone's historical expertise has led to numerous public speaking appearances and to the development of ongoing relationships with broadcasters including BBC Radio and TV, who have utilised her research as a means of re-visualising the significance of popular performance cultures for the general public.