Harry R. McCarthy

Bio

My research centres on early modern acting and performances by children in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

I grew up just outside Oxford, where I attended local comprehensive schools before coming to Exeter in 2011. Over the course of my BA in English and French, I was repeatedly drawn to questions concerning early modern theatrical culture and present-day performances of early modern drama, which culminated in a final-year dissertation on the self-fashioning and reputation of the actor-playwright Nathan Field. Having graduated with a First and Dean's and College Commendations, I left Exeter in 2015 to pursue an M.St. in English (1550-1700) at the University of Oxford, where I worked on theatrical documents in the plays of Christopher Marlowe, the publication and paratexts of Jacobean play quartos, ekphrasis in the narrative poetry of Spenser and Shakespeare, and, finally, a dissertation on early modern concepts of 'youth' and its articulation in the repertory of the Children of the Queen's Revels, 1609-1613. I returned to Exeter in 2016 after being awarded a South, West, and Wales DTP PhD scholarship which allows me to continue to pursue my interests in the training, rehearsal, performance, and afterlives of early modern boy actors.

Throughout my undergraduate and postgraduate studies, I have worked as Director of the Oxford Summer Academy, a Writing Advisor with Exeter's Undergraduate Writing Centre, and have privately taught English, French, and Drama to GCSE, IB, and A Level students. At Exeter, I have taught classes in Shakespeare and Performance (Stage and Screen), and Early Modern Literature. With Paul Prescott (Warwick), I was the Performance Reviews Editor and Editorial Assistant for Shakespeare Bulletin​ until December 2017.