Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queens
PRESENTED BY: Loyola University New Orleans (Departments of English and Theatre Arts and Dance)
DIRECTOR: Prof. Artemis Preeshl
DRAMATURG: Dr. Hillary Eklund
PRODUCER: Dr. John T. Sebastian
SYNOPSIS: Commissioned by Anna of Denmark (Queen consort to King James VI and I) in 1609, The Masque of Queens was designed to honor the King and Queen and to showcase courtly wealth with extravagant sets and costumes (both, in this case, designed by Jonson’s collaborator Inigo Jones). The first masque to feature a disordering anti-masque, The Masque of Queens playfully explores the power of women, the gendering of virtue, and the longevity of great poetry.
COMPANY BIOGRAPHY: Loyola University New Orleans, the only comprehensive Catholic, Jesuit university in the U.S. South, prepares students to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work for a more just world. Loyola’s Department of Theatre Arts is a highly creative, arts-focused community in which students engage in a comprehensive curriculum of performance skills, dramatic literature, theatre management, technology, and design, step into the spotlight or work behind the stage on classical and contemporary performing opportunities, and develop a sense of artistic and personal discipline, responsibility, and a life-long commitment to theatre. The Department of English offers students opportunities to study literature, creative writing including stage- and screen-writing, and film and digital media. The cast includes students studying both theatre and English at Loyola University.
DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHIES:
Professor Artemis an Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Loyola University New Orleans. As a Fulbright scholar at Kalakshetra Foundation, ‘the Juilliard of India’, she directed her film Pancha Ratna (Honorable Mention, Best World Cinema, Hollywood’s DIY Film Festival). She directed Titus Andronicus (Ukraine), Two Gentlemen of Verona (La MaMa), Top Clowns (Kosovo), Parade (Bali), Winter’s Tale (Croatia), Commedia of Errors (La MaMa Italy), and 48 plays nationwide. An International Actor Fellow at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, in collaboration with John Sebastian, she directed Loyola students in The Ascension for the Chester Cycle 2010. AEA SAG-AFTRA
Dr. Hillary Eklund is Assistant Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and the early modern Atlantic. Her book Literature and Moral Economy in the Early Modern Atlantic: Elegant Sufficiencies (Ashgate, 2015) traces how concepts of what it meant to have “enough” expanded in response to changing material conditions of the period. In 2013 she and Artemis Preeshl collaborated in a workshop production of The Masque of Queens at Loyola.
Dr. John T. Sebastian is Associate Professor of Medieval Literature and Director of the Common Curriculum at Loyola University New Orleans. He is, with Christina M. Fitzgerald, the General Editor of The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Literature. His scholarship explores early English drama as a response to religious crisis in the late medieval and early modern periods. He and Artemis Preeshl collaborated in presenting the Chester Ascension to audiences at the University of Toronto for the 2010 staging of the Chester cycle.
RUNNING TIME: 75 mins
VENUE: Isabel Bader Theatre
PERFORMANCE TIME: Friday June 5th at 6 pm
DIRECTOR: Prof. Artemis Preeshl
DRAMATURG: Dr. Hillary Eklund
PRODUCER: Dr. John T. Sebastian
SYNOPSIS: Commissioned by Anna of Denmark (Queen consort to King James VI and I) in 1609, The Masque of Queens was designed to honor the King and Queen and to showcase courtly wealth with extravagant sets and costumes (both, in this case, designed by Jonson’s collaborator Inigo Jones). The first masque to feature a disordering anti-masque, The Masque of Queens playfully explores the power of women, the gendering of virtue, and the longevity of great poetry.
COMPANY BIOGRAPHY: Loyola University New Orleans, the only comprehensive Catholic, Jesuit university in the U.S. South, prepares students to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work for a more just world. Loyola’s Department of Theatre Arts is a highly creative, arts-focused community in which students engage in a comprehensive curriculum of performance skills, dramatic literature, theatre management, technology, and design, step into the spotlight or work behind the stage on classical and contemporary performing opportunities, and develop a sense of artistic and personal discipline, responsibility, and a life-long commitment to theatre. The Department of English offers students opportunities to study literature, creative writing including stage- and screen-writing, and film and digital media. The cast includes students studying both theatre and English at Loyola University.
DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHIES:
Professor Artemis an Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Loyola University New Orleans. As a Fulbright scholar at Kalakshetra Foundation, ‘the Juilliard of India’, she directed her film Pancha Ratna (Honorable Mention, Best World Cinema, Hollywood’s DIY Film Festival). She directed Titus Andronicus (Ukraine), Two Gentlemen of Verona (La MaMa), Top Clowns (Kosovo), Parade (Bali), Winter’s Tale (Croatia), Commedia of Errors (La MaMa Italy), and 48 plays nationwide. An International Actor Fellow at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, in collaboration with John Sebastian, she directed Loyola students in The Ascension for the Chester Cycle 2010. AEA SAG-AFTRA
Dr. Hillary Eklund is Assistant Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans, where she teaches courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and the early modern Atlantic. Her book Literature and Moral Economy in the Early Modern Atlantic: Elegant Sufficiencies (Ashgate, 2015) traces how concepts of what it meant to have “enough” expanded in response to changing material conditions of the period. In 2013 she and Artemis Preeshl collaborated in a workshop production of The Masque of Queens at Loyola.
Dr. John T. Sebastian is Associate Professor of Medieval Literature and Director of the Common Curriculum at Loyola University New Orleans. He is, with Christina M. Fitzgerald, the General Editor of The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Literature. His scholarship explores early English drama as a response to religious crisis in the late medieval and early modern periods. He and Artemis Preeshl collaborated in presenting the Chester Ascension to audiences at the University of Toronto for the 2010 staging of the Chester cycle.
RUNNING TIME: 75 mins
VENUE: Isabel Bader Theatre
PERFORMANCE TIME: Friday June 5th at 6 pm