Spring 2025

Shakespeare Unmasked: Gender, Power, and Performance
on the Renaissance Stage

Plays under discussion:

Cymbeline
12th Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona

This course examines gender, performance, and power in the portrayal of women on the Renaissance stage, focusing on three female characters in Shakespeare’s plays: Cymbeline’s Imogen, Twelfth Night’s Viola, and The Gentleman of Verona’s Julia. In a time when men played all the female roles, cross-dressing was more than a theatrical convention—it shaped and reflected cultural views on gender. We will explore what it meant for male actors to voice female characters and how these performances related to the actual status of women in Elizabethan England, particularly under a female monarch.

Did women truly experience a Renaissance? Beyond the stage, we will consider women’s roles in the Renaissance, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, and the Scientific Revolution. Through historical texts and scholarship, we will assess their contributions and the extent to which their voices were heard or suppressed. 

This course will challenge attendees to rethink traditional ideas of gender performance through close readings, historical analysis, and critical theory. By connecting Shakespeare’s theatrical practices to contemporary discussions of gender and identity, we will examine how his plays continue to influence our understanding of power and representation.

📅 Dates: March 3–May 19 (12 weeks)

🕔 Schedule: Every Monday, 5:00 PM–6:30 PM

📍 Format: Hybrid (In-person and online)

Location:

Northampton Center for the Arts – The Barn
33 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA 01060
Website: nohoarts.org

Important Details:

• Please download the SLACK app to access reading materials and bring your laptop.
  I am happy help set up SLACK during the first week of class.
• Extra readings will be posted on SLACK. Although not required, these materials will
  enhance our understanding of the context in which these plays were written.
• Feel free to attend the discussions on one, two, or three plays and register
  accordingly. As constructed, the plays in this program “speak” to one another, providing
  an arc of study and allowing different facets of the topic to emerge and explore.
  However, coming to study one play will provide threads to investigate at your own pace.

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Special Guest Speaker: Alexa Joubin

Clothes do not make the man: Rethinking Shakespearean
gender-crossing. 

Are Cesario and Viola “cross-dressed” or trans characters? Does Duke Orsino marry Cesario or Viola and is the un-staged wedding a heterosexual or queer one? In what ways might performances of Twelfth Night depict trans and queer trauma? 
A great deal of analysis goes into a play before the acting begins. This interactive presentation explains the critical concepts of speech acts and performativity and offers Twelfth Night as a case study in queer dramaturgy that go beyond the question  to consider dramatic situations that echo trans trauma, such as harassment,
body dysphoria, homelessness, and violence.

Twelfth Night is unique among Shakespearean comedies. It involves a journey of self-discovery in an elsewhere, but it does not depict any sort of returning to where the characters purportedly come from. The gender binary has diminishing returns in this story as genderplay seems to be the name of the game. It is serious business to be playful with gender.

Alexa Alice Joubin is Professor of English and director of the Digital Humanities Institute at George Washington University. Specializing in Shakespeare, gender, and adaptation studies, she is the inaugural recipient of the Bell Hooks Legacy Award. She co-founded the MIT Global Shakespeare’s open-access digital performance archive.

📅 Date: April 7, 2025

🕔 Schedule: Mondays, 5:00 PM–6:30 PM

📍 Format: Hybrid (In-person & online)

Location:
Northampton Center for the Arts – The Barn
33 Hawley Street, Northampton, MA 01060
Website: nohoarts.org