Emilia

Emilia is a call to revolution, a molotov cocktail that provides a shock to the consciousness and sets fire to the status quo. It premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2018, and was written for an entirely female cast. Written by the dynamic Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, the play imagines the life of the real Emilia Bassano, a writer, mother and woman of colour who lived and worked in London during Shakespeare’s golden years. Time has clouded over much of what we know about her, but some scholars hypothesise that she was an influence on some of Shakespeare’s written works for the stage, as well as his sonnets, and is presumed to have been the ‘dark lady’ he wrote about in sonnets 127-152.

This play is a flight of imagination, a dream of what could have been, a statement of what was. It brings a forgotten historical figure into a 20th century spotlight, and challenges archaic gender roles as well as the role of creatives.

Emilia is a mourning, a celebration, and an inflammatory call to rebellion.