EMILIA

By MORGAN LLOYD MALCOLM

Emilia Lanier née Bassano (1569 - 1645) was one of the first English female poets to be published. This all-but-erased historical figure is the subject of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Olivier award-winning play, which was first commissioned for Shakespeare’s Globe with an all-female cast before heading to London’s West End. The little we know of Emilia Bassano Lanier is that she is the rumored “Dark Lady” in Shakespeare’s sonnets, mistress of Lord Chamberlain, a mother, teacher who founded a school for women, and radical feminist with North African ancestry. Living at a time when women had such limited opportunities, Emilia Lanier is therefore a fascinating subject for this speculative history, representing the stories of women everywhere whose narratives have been written out of history.