Cross Dressing and Cross-Casting

Experience the Episode

Presented by

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 12:00 pm

Delve into the historical practice of cross dressing in Shakespeare’s theater, the narrative trope of cross dressing heroines, as well as the contemporary practices of cross-casting in modern Shakespeare productions. Moderated by Jennifer Birkett ’23 Ph.D., postdoctoral research associate at Shakespeare at Notre Dame, the conversation features Peter Holland, McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies and Associate Dean for the Arts at Notre Dame, and Hannah Hicks, Notre Dame Ph.D. student, in a pre-show appearance from the 2024 Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival production of As You Like It.

Join us February 12, 2025 for the release of the video and podcast recordings of this fascinating conversation.

Meet the Moderator: Jennifer Thorup Birkett '23 Ph.D.

Jennifer Birkett ’23 Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Fellow with Shakespeare at Notre Dame. She researches early modern drama with a specific interest in terms of endearment and the relationship between text and performance. Her scholarship characteristically magnifies quirky details and contradictions in order to arrive at new affordances. She is deeply committed to empowering female voices within dramatic narratives and combatting gender inequality by championing mutuality and solidarity.

While a graduate student at Notre Dame, Jennifer worked as a managing editor for the Religion & Literature journal, co-directed the Early Modern Circle, and served as Social and Professionalization chairs for EGSA. She has taught multiple sections of Writing and Rhetoric, Shakespeare and Performance, and Intro to Film and Television.

Meet the Student: Hannah Hicks

Hannah Hicks is a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of Notre Dame. Her research centers early modern drama and romances, with a focus on the representation of passion and presentation of gender. She is particularly interested in women writers and their depiction of
passion conflicting with virtue, as well as the dissonance between written and staged crossdressing performances in the early modern drama. She has previously received a Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College and a Masters of Arts from Middlebury College.

Meet the Faculty: Peter Holland

Peter Holland was educated at Cambridge and, when he left in 1997, was Judith E. Wilson Reader in Drama and Theatre in the Faculty of English. He then served as Director of the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon and Professor in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham before coming to Notre Dame in 2002 as the first holder of the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies, probably the only named chair in Shakespeare anywhere in the world that is not in an English or Literature department.

He was editor of Shakespeare Survey, the UK’s leading academic Shakespeare journal for 19 years, co-General Editor, with Stanley Wells and Lena Orlin, of Oxford Shakespeare Topics (Oxford University Press, over 30 volumes to date); with Adrian Poole, of the 18-volume series Great Shakespeareans (Bloomsbury Academic, 2009-13; with Farah Karim-Cooper and Stephen Purcell of a monograph series, Shakespeare in the Theatre (Bloomsbury Academic, 15 volumes to date); and, with Zachary Leader and Tiffany Stern, of the Arden Shakespeare 4th series. He has also edited many Shakespeare plays.

In 2007, Holland completed publication of a five-volume series of collections on Rethinking British Theatre History. He is the author of more than 140 articles on a wide range of topics in Shakespeare studies as well as on David Garrick, English pantomime, Chekhov, farce, Peter Brook, and many other aspects of drama and performance.

In 2007–08, he served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America. He is Chair of the International Shakespeare Association. He was elected an honorary fellow of the Shakespeare Institute and of Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge. In 2012 he received the Sheedy Award at Notre Dame.