The Dark Lady Rises: A Festival

A weekend of revolutionary performances and conversations by the Dark Lady Players (DLP) celebrating Amelia Bassano Lanier, the so-called Dark Lady of the Sonnets and the first woman in England to publish a book of original poetry. Born in 1569 into a family of Venetian Jews who were court musicians to Queen Elizabeth I. At the age of thirteen, she became mistress to the fifty-six-year-old Lord Hunsdon, Henry VIII’s reputed son by Mary Boleyn. As Lord Chamberlain, Hunsdon was in charge of the English theater and would become the patron of the company that performed the Shakespearean plays. Amelia lived with him for a decade. The DLP is dedicated to resurrecting this extraordinary, groundbreaking woman, too long buried beneath the weight of Dead White Men. Our adaption “Writing Othello” runs in partnership with readings, conversations, and a screening of “Hamlet’s Apocalypse.”