History and Vision Vision Author QME Anthology Leads Conversion and Remediation LEMDO Team Queen’s Men EditionsQME

The Queen’s Men Editions anthology is led by Helen Ostovich, General Editor; Peter Cockett, General Editor (Performance); Andrew Griffin, General Editor (Text; until 2026); and Janelle Jenstad, General Editor (Text; 2026–)

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada McMaster University Poculi Ludique Societas University of Waterloo University of Toronto Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies University of Victoria Friends of the ISE

Released with Queen’s Men Editions 2.0

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author, Queen’s Men Editions, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of Queen’s Men Editions, the editor, and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the critical paratexts in the classroom. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Production photographs and videos on this site may not be downloaded. They appear freely on this site with the permission of the actors and the ACTRA union. They may be used within the context of university courses, within the classroom, and for reference within research contexts, including conferences, when credit is given to the producing company and to the actors. Commercial use of videos and photographs is forbidden.

Queen’s Men Editions

Page written by the QME Anthology Leads. First published in the QME 1.0 anthology on the ISE platform. Converted to TEI-XML and remediated by the LEMDO Team for republication in the QME 2.0 anthology on the LEMDO platform.

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

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 Published file. Proofed metadata. Numbered paragraphs. Made a couple of corrections, such as changing hi to title elements and clarifying use of QME, QM, and SQM. Updated metadata Removed front element from born-digital documents that should not have one. Added licence. Remediated metadata. Renamed document. Change xml:ids on div elements. Did a little copyediting/rewording for QME. Change hi elements to title elements. Converted document. Content added to XWiki by a member of the QME team or a member of the ISE team acting on behalf of QME. The earlier history of this content is not known.

This page summarizes the overall vision of Queen’s Men Editions (QME) as a project and provides a historical summary of its development from its founding in 2006 to the present.

Mission

The two-fold mission of this site is: to recover the plays associated with the Queen’s Men (QM) as readable, teachable, and performable theatrical texts for modern scholars, students, and audiences; and to present those texts in a rich online environment, with multiple points of access to their theatrical, historical, and scholarly contents and contexts.

QME Resources

In keeping with its Performance-as-Research methodology, QME creates academic resources and performance resources.

Academic Peer-reviewed old- and modern-spelling editions of QM plays. Research on original performance conditions and historical contexts of QM plays based on primary documents. Bibliography of scholarly criticism on the QM and their plays, including the relationship to Shakespeare and to other contemporary theatre companies. Production histories of QM plays. Copies of scholarly publications arising out of QME research where possible. Links to other relevant research resources (e.g., REED Patrons & Performances Site). Performance Performance annotations to editions. Photos and scans of the material archive of QME productions staged by the ongoing Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men (SQM) project (props, stages, costumes, actors, scripts, promptbooks). Production photographs of all QME productions. Video footage of the SQM/QME productions: King Leir, Friar Bacon, and Famous Victories, True Tragedy of Richard III, Clyomon and Clamydes, and Three Ladies of London. Video footage of abridged performances of Three Lords and Three Ladies of London (Purdue) and Troublesome Reign of King John (University of York, UK) and other possible future productions. Video footage of interviews with participants in the SQM/QME productions. Performance notes and eyewitness accounts notes made by directors, actors, audiences, and others. Biographical information about modern artists involved in SQM/QME productions. Pedagogical Activities for undergraduate students. Workshop outlines for graduate students and faculty. Course outlines for courses on QM taught by QM researchers.
Aims of Partnership/Shared Identity with Performing the Queen’s Men (PQM)

PQM and QME share the basic premise that the QM plays are performable theatrical works relevant to modern audiences. Performing the Queen’s Men (PQM) helps illustrate the performance dramaturgy of the plays on QME, by presenting primary records of modern productions (to which access is freely given to people affiliated with post-secondary institutions and upon request).

Partnership/Shared Identity with Linked Early Modern Drama Online

QME is published as an anthology on the LEMDO platform. In addition to the obvious goal of providing peer-reviewed play texts by Shakespeare’s near-contemporaries, QME will also provide links to the other anthologies on the LEMDO platform, in particular the New Internet Shakespeare Editions anthology. Links will be created to allow users to compare the dramaturgy of the Queen’s Men with Shakespeare’s versions of the same material.

Design

QME’s images, content, and language support the mission of QME. The design highlights the relationship between original context and modern scholarship and performance, and the relationship between QME and its partner projects, PQM and LEMDO.

Period images relating to QM company and repertory: Images of QM texts and titlepages—all surviving texts are printed, not manuscript; Images of Elizabeth I, Tarlton, and others, as we find necessary or useful.

Images reflecting the modern relevance and accessibility of the plays:

Images of performances and actors, as part of the material stage archive (props, costumes, stages, etc). The material archive is a feature still under planning and construction.
The QME Brand

The QME brand consists of the general attributes that distinguish our content and resources from all others. In our approach to early modern drama, we: treat historical plays as performance texts rooted in their own time and relevant to ours; define repertoire by company rather than by author; see source and influence not as chronological passage from one work to the next or one author to the next, but as a mutual sharing and development of knowledge and technique among a network of artists working concurrently.

Consequently, we provide: a digital collection of plays chosen for their association with the Queen’s Men, rather than with any individual author or actor, supported not only by traditional scholarly apparatus but also by: references to, quotations from, and reproductions of relevant material records (documentary and physical) of the original theatrical conditions in which the plays were performed; interpretive editorial commentary on dramaturgy and performance impact; references to, quotations from, and reproductions of elements of modern productions which explore, test, or illustrate the historical and modern theatrical impact of the plays.

Our over-arching goal in QME is to offer a seamless integration of text and performance.

QME Audiences Primary Audiences Students and scholars interested in Shakespeare’s sources and influences beyond narrative and theme. Students and scholars interested in the plays of the QM. Secondary Audiences Scholars resisting Shakespeare-centric view of early theatre, or exploring non-canonical texts and approaches. Teachers looking for resources to communicate the relation of playtext to performance/production in the early modern period. Anyone interested in original staging practices and the potential for modern staging of old plays (including theatre professionals).

Our website reflects the interest in historically informed performance that has been growing from the 1890s to the modern Globe. It reflects a recent shift in understanding the context of early modern theatre catalyzed by the REED project and reflected in publications like A New History of Early English Drama edited by John D. Cox and David Scott Kastan (1997) and Richard Dutton’s Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre. It also reflects the recent projects undertaken by professional companies like the American Shakespeare Center and Shakespeare’s Globe, which attempt to recover old practices and experiences and make them accessible to modern audiences. The liveliest reasons for users to keep returning to the site are the performance archive, and the editorial annotations discussing the performance values of individual plays.

Stakeholders CPSET Centre for Performance Studies in Early Theatre (U of Toronto) PLS Poculi ludique societas (U of Toronto) PQM Performing the Queen’s Men (McMaster) Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama (U of T)

Content is provided by the editorial team, research assistants, and PLS then reviewed by and funnelled through editors (Cockett, Griffin, Ostovich, and formerly Roberts-Smith). Individual contributors will be identified by name. Financial supporters have their logos displayed (University of Toronto, McMaster, Waterloo, SSHRC, University of Victoria, etc.).

As General Editor, Helen Ostovich ultimately signs off on all content for the site.

Shelf-Life Of QME

Our long term editorial ambitions depend upon our ability to gain funding, and our ability to argue for the inclusion of other plays as potentially QM plays. We expect QME editions to remain the editions of record for many decades. Publishing on the LEMDO platform means that as of 2023 our website will be fully compliant with the principles for long-term digital archiving set out by The Endings Project.

Communication With Stakeholders and Audiences

We will communicate with users by email, and by website announcements, journal announcements, special group/conference announcements, and occasional workshops at conferences (e.g., SAA).