Fierce and provocative, EMILIA is the perfect mix of comedy and fury; a rollicking ride that takes audiences on an exuberant and moving journey though love, loss, identity, ambition, power, rebellion and what it is to be a woman in a man’s world.
From the West End to Australia, the ground-breaking triple Olivier Award-winning stage show EMILIA will make its Australian debut at Arts Centre Melbourne from 10 – 27 November, delivering a riotous, witty reclaiming of the life of an exceptional woman.
Inspired by 17th-century poet and revolutionist Emilia Bassano – the speculated ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets – this highly lauded show, written by British playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, features an all-female creative team and cast from diverse cultural backgrounds.
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Presented by Arts Centre Melbourne in collaboration with Essential Theatre (a female-led, values-driven company headed by experienced theatre-makers Amanda LaBonté and Sophie Lampel) and Geelong Arts Centre, this powerful historical drama – one that unapologetically champions all women – sees Manali Datar, Cessalee Stovall and Lisa Maza – each take on the role of Emilia.
It’s 1609. Emilia Bassano is a writer, wife, lover, mother and muse. All she wanted was her voice to be heard. Could she have been the ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets? What about her own poems? Why was her story erased from history?
Emilia and her sisters reach out to audiences across the centuries with passion, fury, laughter and song as they inspire and unite to celebrate women’s voices through the story of this trailblazing, forgotten woman.
Over 400 years later, women are still faced with sexism, inequality and harassment. In recent times where the #MeToo movement and Roe vs Wade have been most prevalent, it seems that times are not evolving fast enough. This theatre piece shows that all women are Emilia, that they must stand up alongside her and be counted.
Fierce and provocative, EMILIA is the perfect mix of comedy and fury; a rollicking ride that takes audiences on an exuberant and moving journey though love, loss, identity, ambition, power, rebellion and what it is to be a woman in a man’s world.
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“I am so thrilled EMILIA is coming to Australia! This show was an absolute joy to make and perform but it also opened up important conversations about whose stories we tell and how we tell them,” says Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, EMILIA playwright.
“It was created in the midst of Me Too and the bravery of all the women speaking out fuelled us. I wish I could say things have changed for the better since then, but it honestly feels like things have been getting even worse. So perhaps we need this show, and others like it, even more. It will mean all sorts of new things now and the Australian production will have very different resonance to the UK one, and this is exactly what the team who created it hoped for. As Emilia says: ‘Take the fire as your own… we want you to, we need you to’.”
In 2020, EMILIA won three Olivier Awards including Best Entertainment or Comedy Play, Best Costume Design and Best Sound Design.
“We’ll never forget hearing the final speech from EMILIA on a podcast and knowing in our bones we had to bring this extraordinary production to Australia. We had been looking for that special something to mark the milestone of our 20th anniversary and couldn’t believe how beautifully this play aligned with us; being a female-led company and having spent the last 20 years exploring Shakespeare through a female lens,” says Amanda LaBonté and Sophie Lampel, Essential Theatre Producers.
“We knew we had to present this in Australia. We were immediately inspired and invested so we contacted the playwright, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, within 24 hours. Over several Tweets she quickly learned of our enthusiasm and shared our dreams. We joined forces with Darylin Ramondo and Sonya Suares, and that’s when the real pitching started with her UK agent. Several months later, we were beside ourselves when we learned we had secured the Aussie rights to EMILIA. Then, COVID. But two-and-a-half years later we are now poised to deliver EMILIA and we cannot be more excited.”
EMILIA takes to Playhouse, 10 – 27 November. Pre-sale tickets are available now with General Public tickets going on sale on Thursday 14 July at 1pm via the Arts Centre Melbourne.
