After Hours Talks at New Place

You’re invited to take part in a special programme of talks at Shakespeare’s New Place, as we explore the Women Who Made Shakespeare with a host of the best and the brightest academics and experts.

For this first year of our multi-year theme, we are exploring the impact of the women closest to Shakespeare, his relations, his friends, and the lived experience of women in the late Tudor and early Jacobean period.

You will also have exclusive access to our new exhibition, Hidden Voices: The Women Who Made Shakespeare, that you can explore at your leisure as part of your evening.

Discover our Programme of Talks

15 March - Professor Ramie Targoff, Shakespeare's Sisters: Four Women Who Wrote the Renaissance SOLD OUT

10 May - Amy McElroy, Women's Lives in the Tudor Era

7 June - Margaret Willes, The Domestic Herbal

12 July - Professor Nandini Das, The Life of Eleanor Roe

Aug - Tickets available soon

Sept - More details coming soon

Oct - More details coming soon

Nov - More details coming soon

After Hours Talks at New Place take place between 6.30pm and 8pm. Please arrive at the New Place entrance from 6pm. Refreshments will be available to purchase, and The New Place Shop will be open for book signings and browsing after all talks.

Tickets are £10 per person, per event. Your ticket price includes exclusive access to the exhibition at Shakespeare’s New Place.

About the Experts

Professor Ramie Targoff, Shakespeare's Sisters: Four Women Who Wrote the Renaissance

In the first of our After Hours events, Professor Ramie Targoff will talk about her exciting new book, Shakespeare’s Sisters, which explodes our notion of the role of women in the Renaissance period.

This insightful talk will use the lives of four female writers from Shakespeare’s time - Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Elizabeth Cary, and Anne Clifford – who all managed to find their own voices at a time when women were not expected or sometimes permitted to have the same standing in society as men.

A question and answer discussion will follow the author talk.

Book Now

Amy McElroy, Women's Lives in the Tudor Era

For our second After Hours talk, Amy McElroy will be discussing her new book Women’s Lives in the Tudor Era,providing an introduction to the roles of women in the Tudor period across all social backgrounds and how expectations of them differed during the various stages of life. She will explore the expectations and influence of daughters, mothers, wives, and widows in Tudor society.

A question and answer discussion will follow the author talk.

Book Now

Margaret Willes, The Domestic Herbal

For our June talk, author Margaret Willes will explore how growing herbs, fruit, vegetables, and flowers for domestic use was vital to the survival of the seventeenth century household. She will also reveal how plants were used for cooking and brewing, medicines, and cosmetics, in the making and care of clothes, as well as for keeping rooms fresh, fragrant and decorated.

A question and answer discussion will follow the author talk.

Book Now

Professor Nandini Das, The Life of Eleanor Roe

For our July After Hours talk, we will be welcoming author Professor Nandini Das to talk about her book Courting India and the story of Sir Thomas Roe (first ambassador to the Mughal Empire, under James I) and his wife, Eleanor.

Bringing the story closer to home, it is believed the beautiful, embroidered jacket in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's collection once belonged to Eleanor herself.

A question and answer discussion will follow the author talk.

Book Now

Part of The Women who Made Shakespeare

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Read our FAQs to find answers to your questions about our After Hours Talks.