LITERATURE + LECTURES

Rienzi opens its doors at twilight! Treat yourself to an engaging short lecture, an open house tour of the collection, and social time over wine and bites at Rienzi Twilight Talk: Pirates, Pistol-Packing Dwarves, and Other Surprises in Theatre History, Thursday, April 14, 6pm-8pm.

Rienzi’s April Twilight Talk, featuring Dr. Robert Shimko, will address an often overlooked source of pleasure and delight in theatre history: the encounters that can occur while navigating the lives of historical figures.

Sir William Davenant (pictured above) is known to theater historians as one of the great impresarios of seventeenth-century England. He is widely credited as the man who introduced opera to England, and he operated the more adventurous of the two London playhouses of the early Restoration. However, before this, Davenant spent the English Civil War, a period during which theatre had been outlawed by Puritans in Parliament, operating a raiding ship in the English Channel. To King Charles I, Davenant was a loyal privateer in the mode of Sir Francis Drake; to the Parliament he was a “notorious Pirate.”

Dr. Shimko will explore the fascinating particulars of Davenant’s adventures, including his association with the pistol-wielding “Royal Dwarf” Jeffrey Hudson as well as his attempts to create a more positive image for English “sea dogs” like himself using the medium of the theatre.

About the Speaker: Dr. Robert Shimko is Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Dramaturgy at the University of Houston where he heads the M.A. degree program in theatre studies as well as the B.F.A. degree track in playwriting/dramaturgy. His research interests include the writing of theatre history during the seventeenth century and political drama in the English Restoration period. In 2008, he received the Robert A. Schanke Theatre Research Award from the Mid-America Theatre Conference.

Dr. Shimko’s writing has been published innumerous scholarly journals and anthologies, and he is currently co-editing a book of essays titled Public Theatres and Theatre Publics for Cambridge Scholars Press. He has been an invited guest lecturer at Louisiana State University, Hamline University, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Dr. Shimko is also a busy freelance dramaturg whose professional credits include the Alley Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, Harlem Stage, Stages Repertory Theatre, and the Catastrophic Theatre.