Horace Walpole’s The Mysterious Mother: A Staged Reading

Horace Walpole’s The Mysterious Mother: A Staged Reading Wednesday, May 2, 2018 Yale Center for British Art As part of the year-long celebrations of the tercentenary of Horace Walpole’s birth, the Lewis Walpole Library and the Yale Center for British Art jointly presented a staged reading of his tragedy The Mysterious Mother (1768). Completed just a few years after Walpole’s celebrated gothic novel The Castle of Otranto (1764), this under-appreciated tale of incest and intrigue was initially circulated only among the author’s friends. Walpole never permitted it to be performed during his lifetime except as a private theatrical. Produced by Cynthia Roman, Curator or Prints, Drawings and Paintings, The Lewis Walpole Library Abridged by David Worrall, Emeritus Professor of English at Nottingham Trent University Directed by Misty G. Anderson, Lindsay Young Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of Theater and Religious Studies, University of Tennessee A talk-back session moderated by Catherine Sheehy, Professor of the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, Yale University CAST: Countess of Narbonne: Georgina Lock, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University Count Edmund, her Son: Carlos Guanche, Yale TC ‘20 Florian, his friend: Gilberto Saenz, Yale ES ‘19 Adeliza: Chelsea Phillips, Assistant Professor of Theater, Villanova University Benedict, Friar: Charlie Gillespie, Doctoral candidate in Religious Studies, University of Virginia Martin, Friar: Justin Crisp, Doctoral candidate in Religious Studies, Yale University Peter Porter: Dale Townshend, Professor of Gothic Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University Servant: Stephen Clarke, Independent Scholar Prologue: Jill Campbell, Professor of English, Yale University Epilogue: Misty G. Anderson, Lindsay Young Professor of English and Adjunct Professor of Theater and Religious Studies, University of Tennessee Digital Set Designer: Alice Trent, MFA in Lighting Design, University of Tennessee