Uncovering Shakespeare\u27s Sisters in Special Collections and College Archives, Musselman Library

Foreword by Professor Suzanne J. Flynn I have taught the first-year seminar, Shakespeare’s Sisters, several times, and over the years I have brought the seminar’s students to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. There, the wonderful librarians have treated the students to a special exhibit of early women’s manuscripts and first editions, beginning with letters written by Elizabeth I and proceeding through important works by seventeen and eighteenth-century women authors such as Aemelia Lanyer, Anne Finch, Aphra Behn, and Mary Wollstonecraft. This year I worked with Carolyn Sautter, the Director of Special Collections and College Archives, to give my 2018 seminar students the opportunity to produce a sequel to the Folger exhibit of early modern women writers. Special Collections houses an impressive array of first editions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many of them acquired from Thomas Y. Cooper, the former editor of the Hanover Evening Sun newspaper, who donated over 1600 items to Musselman Library in 1965. Working with Kerri Odess-Harnish, we chose first editions of eight significant works of literature written by American and British women from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. The students worked in pairs, researching a single book and producing a report that outlines important biographical facts about the author, the book’s publication and reception history, and finally the significance of the book in the years since its publication. We hope that our project will draw attention to the wealth of literary treasures housed in Special Collections at Musselman Library, but especially to these works by eight of “Shakespeare’s Sisters.

Everyone on Radio

This adaptation of Everyman was scheduled for production on the main stage in the Kline Theatre of Gettysburg College. With the onset of COVID-19 and the ensuing advent of distance-learning, that could no longer happen, and originally that was a crushing disappointment. But the show must go on, especially when that show is “Everyman,” an especially apt theatrical choice for a pestilential year. Everyman offers exciting possibilities for audio drama, especially considering the play’s emphasis on the internal struggle of the individual facing death; Everyone on Radio attempts to make the most of these aspects of the play. Never willing to blink in the face of doom, the students in this class rose to the occasion with incredible pluck, optimism, and good humor. In particular, Lauren “Helping” Hand, the peer associate for this year’s course, led the pivot to the podcast platform, and this production is as much hers as anyone’s: She was chief cheerleader, coordinator, and executive producer, in tandem with Joey “Magic Fingers” Maguschak, who acted as senior sound engineer and producer

(Hu)Mankind

Medieval Drama: the summer-stock theater of late Medieval Europe! Once considered merely the poor (and distant!) relation of Shakespearean Theater, Medieval drama has now emerged as a vibrant field of study in its own right. In ENG 312 we explore conflicting theories concerning the origin and development of Medieval drama, examine its social roles, discuss issues of text and performance, and compare the relative merits of “good literature” and “good drama.” This course always culminates with a public performance of an original adaptation of a Medieval Play, translated and staged by the students themselves. This year’s production was an adaptation of Mankind (ca. 1470), a Morality Play. While Everyman is certainly the best-known example of the genre, a number of other, much funnier Morality Plays leavened the harsh, moralistic tone of Judgment with aspects of the so-called “Comedy of Evil.” Mankind, also perhaps the first example of professional theater in England, is a sidesplitting, zany play about death and dying with just such a twist: It’s both profound and playful, and it gives new meaning to the phrase, “died laughing.” What a hoot! Since we learn by doing in this class, our final project was a public production of our own creative and original version of the play entitled (Hu)Mankind 2020, performed at 4:00 PM on Friday, 29 April 2022 on the stage in the Kline Theatre at Gettysburg College. This year’s whacky, off-the-wall theme was memento mori! The recording of this production is split into three videos. The first, roughly 21-minute video begins with the pre-show introduction to the play and ends with Mankind’s threat to beat with her shovel the demons New Style, Nowadays, and Nothing. The second video begins with Mankind’s enactment of her threat to beat with her shovel the demons New Style, Nowadays, and Nothing, and ends with the collection of tithes from the audience for the summoning of the Devil Titivillus. $59.25 and 5.00 Euros raised during this gag were donated to the Gettysburg Community Soup Kitchen. The third, concluding video begins with the summoning of the Devil Titivillus and ends with the cast’s curtain call and presentation of gifts of appreciation to Joey Maguschak, beloved class peer learning associate