'Early Modern women take to the stage: Creative responses to the past' This event will feature two short performances by the actors who portray Alice Thornton (Debbie Cannon) and Isabella Whitney (Atira Shack). This will be followed by a panel discussion with the organisers and writers about the process of dramatising early modern women for the contemporary stage, and the potential for creative work to take historical and literary research to new audiences. Alice Thornton and Isabella Whitney Alice Thornton was a 17th-century gentlewoman who lived through the upheaval of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. She wrote at least four autobiographical books and one key theme is her many deliverances from death. Isabella Whitney was a 16th-century serving-woman whose poetry explores the vagaries of fortune and romantic love. She was also the first woman to publish secular poetry in print, in English. Inspired by their research, Professor Cordelia Beattie and Dr Anna-Rose Shack embarked on two separate theatre projects that sought to breathe new life into these early modern women and their writing. Anna-Rose Shack Anna-Rose Shackis a postdoctoral researcher working with the “DERIVATE: Towards a Literary History of Derivation” project at the University of Freiburg. Her research interests cluster around vulnerability studies, early modern women’s writing, contemporary theatre, and literary retellings. She completed her PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2025 and her work has appeared in a range of journals and edited collections including Women’s Writing, The Pulter Project, and ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830. Anna-Rose has taught at the universities of Amsterdam, Groningen, and Freiburg and is passionate about using her background in theatre studies to bring literature to life through the curation of literary events and performances.Professor Cordelia Beattie Cordelia Beattie is Professor of Women's and Gender History at the University of Edinburgh. She has published widely on premodern women in Britain and Europe. She led the AHRC-funded project Alice Thornton's Books: Remembrances of a Woman's Life in the Seventeenth Century from 2021-25. Cordelia put on a play, Remarkable Deliverances of Alice Thornton, for the Being Human Festival in 2019, with Debbie Cannon and Flavia D'Avila, which was a catalyst for further work in this area. Tags Gender History Research Staff Oct 15 2026 16.30 - 18.00 'Early Modern women take to the stage: Creative responses to the past' Explore how Alice Thornton's and Isabella Whitney's writing found new audiences hundreds of years after their deaths. G.03, Doorway 6, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG Find the venue This article was published on Monday 14 September 2026
'Early Modern women take to the stage: Creative responses to the past' This event will feature two short performances by the actors who portray Alice Thornton (Debbie Cannon) and Isabella Whitney (Atira Shack). This will be followed by a panel discussion with the organisers and writers about the process of dramatising early modern women for the contemporary stage, and the potential for creative work to take historical and literary research to new audiences. Alice Thornton and Isabella Whitney Alice Thornton was a 17th-century gentlewoman who lived through the upheaval of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. She wrote at least four autobiographical books and one key theme is her many deliverances from death. Isabella Whitney was a 16th-century serving-woman whose poetry explores the vagaries of fortune and romantic love. She was also the first woman to publish secular poetry in print, in English. Inspired by their research, Professor Cordelia Beattie and Dr Anna-Rose Shack embarked on two separate theatre projects that sought to breathe new life into these early modern women and their writing. Anna-Rose Shack Anna-Rose Shackis a postdoctoral researcher working with the “DERIVATE: Towards a Literary History of Derivation” project at the University of Freiburg. Her research interests cluster around vulnerability studies, early modern women’s writing, contemporary theatre, and literary retellings. She completed her PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2025 and her work has appeared in a range of journals and edited collections including Women’s Writing, The Pulter Project, and ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830. Anna-Rose has taught at the universities of Amsterdam, Groningen, and Freiburg and is passionate about using her background in theatre studies to bring literature to life through the curation of literary events and performances.Professor Cordelia Beattie Cordelia Beattie is Professor of Women's and Gender History at the University of Edinburgh. She has published widely on premodern women in Britain and Europe. She led the AHRC-funded project Alice Thornton's Books: Remembrances of a Woman's Life in the Seventeenth Century from 2021-25. Cordelia put on a play, Remarkable Deliverances of Alice Thornton, for the Being Human Festival in 2019, with Debbie Cannon and Flavia D'Avila, which was a catalyst for further work in this area. Tags Gender History Research Staff Oct 15 2026 16.30 - 18.00 'Early Modern women take to the stage: Creative responses to the past' Explore how Alice Thornton's and Isabella Whitney's writing found new audiences hundreds of years after their deaths. G.03, Doorway 6, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG Find the venue This article was published on Monday 14 September 2026
Oct 15 2026 16.30 - 18.00 'Early Modern women take to the stage: Creative responses to the past' Explore how Alice Thornton's and Isabella Whitney's writing found new audiences hundreds of years after their deaths.
