Holger Schott Syme

Associate Professor of English and Drama at UTM; Associate Chair, Drama
Deerfield Hall 1045, UTM, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6

Campus

Cross-Appointments

Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies

Biography

Holger Syme is Director of Drama Studies and Associate Professor of English and Drama at the University of Toronto Mississauga, a member of the graduate faculty of the Department of English, and cross-appointed to the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. He works primarily as a theatre historian, focusing on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England as well as modern and contemporary European theatre (with a particular interest in Germany).

He is the author of Theatre and Testimony in Shakespeare’s England: A Culture of Mediation (Cambridge University Press, 2012), has co-edited Locating the Queen’s Men, 1583-1603: Material Practices and Conditions of Playing (Ashgate, 2009), and contributed the theatre-historical introduction to the third edition of the Norton Shakespeare, gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Norton, 2015), for which he also edited Edward III and The Book of Sir Thomas More. His essays have appeared in English Literary Renaissance, the Review of English Studies, Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Survey, Theatre Survey, and other journals as well as in numerous edited collections. He is an occasional contributor to The Walrus, the Los Angeles Review of Books, intermissionmagazine.ca, and the German theatre criticism portal Nachtkritik.de and frequently blogs and reviews on Dispositio.net.

His current book projects include (in likely order of completion) a study of Shakespeare in Berlin, 1918-2018; a history of the idea of the ensemble in 20th-century European theatre; and a revisionist account of the theatrical institutions and practices of early modern England.

Prof. Syme also occasionally works as a director; most recently, he has staged productions of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Ödön von Horváth’s Casimir and Caroline. His co-adaptation of the latter play is part of the 2019/20 season at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto.

Selected works:

Theatre and Testimony in Shakespeare’s England: A Culture of Mediation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
(https://www-cambridge-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/core/books/theatre-and-testimony-in-shakespeares-england/F50444614F7464A49D78CE1568A698FD)

“The Jacobean King’s Men: A Reconsideration,” Review of English Studies 70 (2019): 231-51.
(https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1093/res/hgy131)

“Pastiche or Archetype? The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and the Project of Theatrical Reconstruction,” Shakespeare Survey 71 (2018): 135-46.
(https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1017/9781108557177.016)

“A Theatre without Actors,” Theatre Survey 59 (2018): 265-75.
(https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1017/S0040557418000091)

“The Meaning of Success: Stories of 1594 and Its Aftermath,” Shakespeare Quarterly 61 (2010): 490-524
(https://www-jstor-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/40985628)

“Marlowe in his Moment,” Christopher Marlowe in Context, ed. Emily C. Bartels and Emma Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 275-84.(https://doi-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1017/CBO9781139060882.030)

Education

AM and PhD, Harvard University
BA, Oxford University

Administrative Service

Director of Drama Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga