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Pavel Drábek

Professor Pavel Drabek

Professor of Drama and Theatre Practice

Faculty and Department

  • Faculty of Arts Cultures and Education
  • School of The Arts

Summary

The University appointed Pavel as Professor of Drama and Theatre Practice in 2013. His research and teaching interests range from Shakespeare and early modern drama and theatre in Europe to drama translation, adaptation, dramaturgy and scenography to theatre theory. He is also interested in music theatre, scenography and theatre theory.

He has published on Czech translations of Shakespeare (Ceské pokusy o Shakespeara, 2012); on early modern drama (Fletcherian Dramatic Achievement: The Mature Plays of John Fletcher, 2010); on theatre theory (Theatre Theory Reader, 2017; gen.ed. David Drozd). He has co-edited (with M. A. Katritzky) Transnational Connections in Early Modern Theatre (2020), edited Pamela Howard’s What is Scenography? (3rd ed., 2019), and is working on Adapting and Translating for the Stage.

Between 2003 and 2015 he set up and led the Ensemble Opera Diversa (www.operadiversa.cz), a Czech professional music and opera company. He has written and translated for the opera, theatre and the radio, mostly collaborating with composer Ondrej Kyas.

Recent outputs

View more outputs

Book Chapter

Dramaturgy of the Shakespearean Libretto

Drábek, P. (2022). Dramaturgy of the Shakespearean Libretto. In C. R. Wilson, & M. Cooke (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music (761-804). Oxford: Oxford University Press (OUP). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190945145.013.27

English actors in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time of Ladislaus IV.

Drábek, P., & Katritzky, M. A. (in press). English actors in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time of Ladislaus IV. In J. Zukowski (Ed.), Warsaw Triumphant Harmony. Warsaw: Arx Regia Publishing

Journal Article

Performative Models and Physical Fictions

Drábek, P. (2023). Performative Models and Physical Fictions. Litteraria Pragensia : Studies in Literature and Culture, 32(64), 8-36

Lukas Erne and Kareen Seidler, eds. Early Modern German Shakespeare: Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet: Der Bestrafte Brudermord and Romio und Julieta in Translation. The Arden Shakespeare. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2020. Pp. 366.

Drábek, P. (2022). Lukas Erne and Kareen Seidler, eds. Early Modern German Shakespeare: Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet: Der Bestrafte Brudermord and Romio und Julieta in Translation. The Arden Shakespeare. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2020. Pp. 366. Early theatre, 25(1), 175-183. https://doi.org/10.12745/et.25.1.5170

German Shakespeare and the Political Stage

Drábek, P. (in press). German Shakespeare and the Political Stage. Theatralia, 24(2), 263-266. https://doi.org/10.5817/TY2021-2-12

Research interests

Shakespeare

early modern drama in Europe

transnational connections

theatre theory

playwriting

opera libretto and music theatre

scenography

Postgraduate supervision

Professor Drábek welcomes postgraduate students researching in the fields of Shakespeare, early modern theatre and drama in Europe, drama translation and adaptation, and opera libretto studies.

Completed PhDs

- Kacer T, New Messengers: Reportage in Late Twentieth-Century British and American Mainstream Drama (2012, Masaryk University)

- Seibertová L, Translations as Original Works of Literature (2017, Masaryk University; supervision completed by Dr Michael Kaylor)

- Bell H, Practice-Based Investigation into Young People's Response to Shakespeare in Performance (2016, University of Hull; as co-supervisor)

- Tang R, Chinese Shakespeare: an Intercultural Study across Three Genres (2016, University of Hull; as co-supervisor)

- Harrison T, 'Guides Not Commanders': Imitation and Contamination of the Classics in the Comedies of Ben Jonson (2017; University of Hull; as co-supervisor)

Current PhD supervisions

- Railton, A, Tracing genre and mode shifts in the early modern period (University of Hull, NECAH scholarship; as principal supervisor; co-supervised with Prof. Lisa Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam University)

- Gilbert, R, Professional wrestling as entertainment, a performance and a business (University of Hull, NECAH scholarship; as principal supervisor; co-supervised with Dr Henry Bell, Sheffield Hallam University)

- Fielding L, An Investigation into the Current Uses of Russian Theatre Director Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold's Actor Training System, Biomechanics, in the 21st Century (University of Hull; as co-supervisor)

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