Me in my favourite location, an archives
Hello, I’m Alan Somerset. I’ve been retired since 2008, so I’m now Professor Emeritus, Department of English, University of Western Ontario. But I’m long gone from there!
For most of my scholarly life I’ve been close to the Records of Early English Drama (REED) project, which is based at the University of Toronto. I’m the editor of two published collections, Shropshire (1994) and Staffordshire (2017) and another forthcoming collection, Warwickshire. I was General Editor of Studies in Early English Drama, was a member of the REED Executive Board for thirty years, and was the co-Director of the Patrons and Performances website project (2003).
The early stages of Performers without Patrons were undertaken with the welcome support of a grant from the Academic Development Fund, University of Western Ontario, and two research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Latterly this has become a post-retirement project, and I have benefited from advice and suggestions from a number of people — I’d chiefly like to thank Dr. James Cummings, Newcastle University; Professor Peter Harris, formerly from the University of Toronto; Professor Thy Phu, University of Toronto; and Professor John McGavin, formerly from the University of Southampton.
Performers Without Patrons 