Red Velvet

A Student Edition of this 2012 play, looking at Ira Aldridge as a historical character, the play's engagement with issues of race and prejudice both through a historical and a contemporary lens, and how the play has been staged and received since its premiere.

‘Chakrabarti has crafted a rich psychological study that’s also a shrewd portrait of the theatre as an institution — its vanities and strange conventions, its politics and sense of community, the opportunities it presents for both progress and blinkered traditionalism.’ EVENING STANDARD

Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, 1833. Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, has collapsed on stage while playing Othello. A young Black American actor has been asked to take over the role. But as the public riot in the streets over the abolition of slavery, how will the cast, critics and audience react to the revolution taking place in the theatre?

Red Velvet uses imagined experiences based on the true story of Ira Aldridge, a Black American actor who, in the nineteenth century, built an incredible reputation on the stages of London and Europe.
This Student Edition contains commentary and notes by Lydia Valentine, Research Fellow and Lecturer at Shakespeare’s Globe.