Chapter 21 - Edward’s Boys in the South of France

Summary

Edward’s Boys’ productions of early modern drama provide valuable insights into a repertoire that was written mostly with children performers in mind, attracting a great deal of professional interest from academics and theatre practitioners. This chapter focuses on a collaboration between Edward’s Boys and the Montpellier Institute for research in the Renaissance, the neo-Classical era and the Enlightenment (IRCL). In 2016, 2018 and 2022, Edward’s Boys were invited to perform before audiences of Francophone teenagers in the context of an action research programme led by the IRCL with six high schools that explores ways of fostering civic values and linguistic skills through acting and spectating experiences (Florence March discusses this programme in Chapter 2 of this volume). For Edward’s Boys, performing in France represents a break with their usual performance and audience culture and offers a novel adaptive and educational experience. This chapter traces how this collaborative project was imagined, designed, implemented and experienced, and how adjustments were introduced between the 2016 and 2018 visits. It considers the underlying ethos of the project’s work with young performers and audiences, and reflects on the benefits and challenges such opportunities offer for creative, peer-to-peer interaction within a research context.