2018 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Orlando, FL.
“Irish Women Playwrights from the ‘Long’ Eighteenth Century.” Dr. David Clare, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick; DClare1@eircom.net
In recent decades, movements such as #Waking the Feminists and “There Are No Irish Women Playwrights!” have highlighted the prejudice regularly faced by Irish women when they submit their scripts to leading Irish theatres for consideration. This problem is, of course, nothing new. Irish women dramatists from the eighteenth century also had trouble getting their plays produced (in Dublin or London). For example, Maria Edgeworth had two plays rejected by Drury Lane, and her strongest plays were only ever produced as “home theatricals”. Similarly, Mary Davys’s The Self-Rivals was meant to be performed at Drury Lane but was subsequently dropped from the production schedule. When Irish women did manage to get their plays staged, they were rarely revived, even when the initial run was a popular success. This is true of important plays by Davys, Frances Sheridan, and Elizabeth Griffith. This panel seeks papers which discuss any aspect of plays written by Irish women during the “long” eighteenth century. Because so many plays by Irish women from this period were either rejected by those in charge of theatres in Dublin and London or have rarely been revived, there is much scholarship to be done on these unjustly-neglected works.” For CFP and more information on conference submissions, click here.