{"id":122482,"date":"2025-06-18T07:35:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T11:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/?post_type=featured-work&p=122482"},"modified":"2025-06-18T07:44:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T11:44:02","slug":"emilia","status":"publish","type":"featured-work","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/featured-work\/emilia\/","title":{"rendered":"Emilia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Emilia<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

April 25 – 27, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Emilia<\/em>, by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm<\/strong> and directed by Taylor Stark <\/strong>(CFA\u201925) is a riotous, witty reclaiming of the life of an exceptional woman. Four hundred years ago, Emilia Bassano wanted her voice to be heard. It wasn\u2019t. Could she have been the \u2018Dark Lady\u2019 of Shakespeare\u2019s sonnets? What of her own poetry? Why was her story erased from history? In Malcolm\u2019s electrifying play, Emilia and her sisters reach out across the centuries with passion, fury, laughter and song.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Emilia<\/em> followed the run of DESDEMONA, a play about a handkerchief<\/em><\/em>, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Paula Vogel, was directed by Grant Sorenson (CFA\u201925) and ran from April 16 – 19, 2025 in Boston University’s Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre. As the wrongly accused and suffering wife of Shakespeare\u2019s Othello<\/em>, Desdemona has long been viewed as the \u201cvictim of circumstance.\u201d But as Vogel demonstrates in her comic deconstruction of Shakespeare\u2019s play, Desdemona was far from the quivering na\u00eff we\u2019ve all come to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are thinking of these two pieces less in repertory and more in conversation with each other since they run back-to-back rather than alternating performances,\u201d says Sorenson, the director of Desdemona<\/em>. \u201cThe two plays were selected to be produced together because of the shared themes and content between them, but they are also completely unique shows in their voices and storytelling. Ultimately, both plays speak very loudly and individually in their own right, which has been really exciting to put up next to each other and see where they overlap and where they diverge from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We worked as a group to come up with a space that feels true to both the world of\u00a0Desdemona<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Emilia<\/em>. These conversations included both directors, both scenic designers, both production managers \u2013 you get the idea. This has been a great exercise in collaboration. We throw that word around all the time in theatre but it has been exciting to watch two lighting designers working together to create a plot that works for both of them or seeing two different costume designers take on these historically-inspired pieces in their own ways. Grant and I have been on the same page about the themes that feel important to us in these two productions since day one.<\/div>