Dr Ailsa Grant Ferguson, Senior Lecturer in Literature with the university’s College of Arts and Humanities, has researched the Shakespeare Hut, a YMCA building which once stood on the site of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The building, used by nearly 100,000 soldiers as a safe place to stay and enjoy entertainments in its purpose-built theatre, opened 100 years ago in 1916 to commemorate the 300th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Its theatre was run by prominent suffragettes.
Dr Grant Ferguson is working with actress, director and academic, Dr Naomi Paxton from the School of Advanced Studies and the production company Scary Little Girls on a Shakespeare Hut ‘living literature walk’ that explores soldiers, Shakespeare and suffragists through the voices and stories of those who lived, worked and performed there.
The event is part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities.