Please join us for a CuSPP Seminar in person (ADH conf. room) and online on Monday 19 May from 4:45-5:45. Please refer to the CuSPP email or email Wesley.Lim@anu.edu.au for the link.

Abstract

This thesis examines creative processes from the perspective of theatre practitioners, examining how and why LGBTIQ artists adapt early modern plays, looking specifically the manner in which these plays might allow artists to locate queer histories that have been lost or erased. Utilising a practice-led research methodology, dovetailing with an embodied reparative reading methodology, it considers how such processes might allow the artist to create a “queer temporality”, one which dislocates a chrono-normative model of time, locating resonances across time between the play-world and that of the creative team. While there is a plethora of scholarship on queer theory and early modern drama, there is little from the perspective of artists which examines how these texts support queer readings and experiences. Building on work done by queer and trans scholars, this thesis addresses this gap, bringing creative processes into dialogue with early modern scholarship to consider how the inbuilt queerness of the texts speaks to queer identities and experiences today. In this undertaking, I adapted two early modern plays with an LGBTIQ+ team of actors, Galatea, by John Lyly and Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, which were consolidated into one theatrical production utilising its own queer temporal logic, Love & Faith (and something unholy), which was presented at Qtopia Sydney in August 2024.

Bio

Lucy Boon is a PhD candidate at Australian National University. Her research examines creative processes when queering early modern drama from a theatre practitioner perspective. Her current project explores how adaptation has the potential to destabilise teleological frameworks and allow LGBTIQ+ artists to locate personal or collective histories that have been lost or erased. As a part of this practice led research, she adapted and directed a new work, Love & Faith (and something unholy) which was performed at Qtopia Sydney with the support of City of Sydney in 2024.

Boon was awarded first-class honours for her thesis “O, You Must Wear Your Rue With A Difference” Adapting Shakespeare: Organic Dramaturgy and Cultural Legacy in Ophelia’s Shadow. This practice as research project explored the relationship between creative processes and cultural legacy. It involved developing and staging a new musical Ophelia’s Shadow, based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which toured across Australia in 2017.

Boon is an award-winning theatre maker and playwright, and is the Artistic Director of Acoustic Theatre, an independent theatre company in Australia specialising in new queer musicals. She holds a Master of Business: Arts and Cultural Management from Deakin University and was awarded Best Graduate in her 2021 class. She has worked as a fundraiser and arts administrator since 2019 holding positions at Bell Shakespeare, Australian’s leading Shakespeare theatre company, and Can Too Foundation.