Upstart!, Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith a new play by American writer Mary Jane Schaefer will make its UK Premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and will play from 02 -27 August at the Gilded Balloon, Patter Hoose at 12:10pm.
Directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones the Artistic Director of the award-winning Action To The Word, Associate Director of SIX The Musical West End and an Associate of Shakespeare’s Globe. Upstart! explores the family life of William Shakespeare from the perspective of his daughter Judith. An insight into the real life of the world’s most celebrated playwright, it probes the sacrifices that artists make to bring their work to fruition, as well as the somewhat less celebrated adulteries of the hero-worshipped Bard.
While her father is theatre-making at The Globe in London, Judith battles with what it means to be a Jacobean woman in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Judith battled her whole life with having lost her twin brother in early life, growing up like she was half of something and couldn’t ever be enough for her parents, who would never truly recover from the loss of their son.
But Judith Shakespeare is a chip off her father’s block. Desperate to be closer to him, she decides to do something about it. Emulating the adventures of her father’s dramatic heroines, Judith decides to take on the guise of a man and journeys herself to London to find her father. When she does find him, he’s where he belongs, in the Playhouse – but caught embroiled in an illicit affair with his mistress, the infamous focus of The Dark Lady sonnets. In reaction to her father following his heart, Judith decides that she will follow hers, marrying Tom Quiney – the wrong man, cutting her ties with her family and ultimately destroying her life.
A powerful retelling of the life of Judith Shakespeare, with thematic shadows of Shakespeare’s own Twelfth Night, Upstart gives voice to a feminist born before her time. Surviving the loss of her twin brother Hamnet, Judith is left to her grief and to shape her own future. A figure left to the confines of history, writer Mary Jane Schaefer reclaims the life of a courageous and unconventional woman, who refused to conform to the expectations of her gender.
Upstart! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith is presented by Maddy Mutch Productions , written by Mary Jane Schaefer , Directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones, with Lighting Design from Charlie Morgan Jones. It will be performed by an ensemble cast (to be announced) and told poignantly with live music and period dress.
Alexandra Spencer-Jones says: “I love directing Shakespearean stories and am really excited about directing a story about the actual life of the man himself – similarly laden with drama, intrigue and passion”
Discover the compelling story of the last surviving Shakespeare.
