The play is loosely adapted from Pietro Aretino's Renaissance comedy, Il Marescalco. It is set in 1526 Mantua, and concerns a homosexual man who will be forced at knifepoint to marry a woman.

As previously announced, the reading series will continue with Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci, starring Lisa Harrow and Roger Rees (October 27), John Marston's The Malcontent, starring Matthew Rauch (November 17), Mark Lamos' staging of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (December 8), Luis Alfaro's Electricidad (January 12), Peter Shaffer's The Royal Hunt of the Sun (February 23), and Miguel de Cervantes' The Siege of Numantia (March 2).