Bard on the Beach Shines Spotlight on Emilia Bassano with ‘The Dark Lady’

This summer, the contemporary new Canadian work The Dark Lady will take the stage for Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival’s 36th season.

Directed by Moya O’Connell and written by Jessica B. Hill, The Dark Lady tells the story of Emilia Bassano, a multiracial and trilingual woman born to a family of court musicians, England’s first female published poet and, as some theorize, the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets during the 1590s, with sonnets 127 to 152 addressed to a woman with dark skin and hair. The subject of these sonnets has been an ongoing source of fascination for both scholars and hobbyists alike, including longtime Stratford Festival actor Jessica B. Hill.

Hill had been fascinated with Shakespeare’s sonnets back in theatre school, but it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that she had the opportunity to explore them further.

“Fiona Mongillo, now the artistic director of Here for Now Theatre, challenged me to write something to perform outdoors a few months later,” says Hill. “I knew I wanted to write about those ‘Dark Lady’ sonnets, but as soon as I dove into researching theories on who she might have been... I couldn’t stop.”

In particular, it was Bassano’s poetry that drew Hill in. Considered to be a piece of early proto-feminist literature, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum championed the perspectives of women, while also critiquing the Bible’s traditional attitudes towards figures like Eve.

“Her verse sheds light on how passionate she must have been, and I immediately heard Viola, Beatrice, Kate, Rosalind, Cleopatra... her infinite variety,” says Hill. “She is a fascinating historical figure and the more I researched her, her life events and timelines, the more coincidences and echoes I’d discover in Shakespeare’s life and plays. It truly felt like uncovering a 400-year-old secret.”

The Dark Lady reclaims the story of Emilia Bassano from the margins of history, while also imagining the circumstances that could have brought her in conversation with an emerging poet and playwright named William Shakespeare. This witty and intimate production explores their artistic collaboration — and romantic entanglement — in a sweeping saga that will alter the course of their lives, their art and the legacies they leave behind.

After award-winning productions with Shakespeare in the Ruins/Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan and Lunchbox Theatre/The Shakespeare Company, The Dark Lady will make its B.C. debut with Bard on the Beach this summer featuring Arghavan Jenati as Emilia Bassano and Nathan Kay as William Shakespeare, with Synthia Yusuf and Sebastian Kroon as understudies. It will run in the Douglas Campbell Theatre tent, which has historically staged the festival’s more contemporary and experimental approaches to Shakespeare.

It’s a natural fit for a play that invites audiences to more deeply understand — and challenge — their love for Shakespeare, while also bringing Emilia Bassano’s story to the forefront. Says director Moya O’Connell, “What a gift it is to shine a light on her and spend time in her orbit.”

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‘The Dark Lady’ runs July 3 to Sept. 19 in the Douglas Campbell Theatre at Sen̓áḵw/Vanier Park. Bard on the Beach’s full 2025 season runs June 10 to Sept. 20 and features ‘Much Ado about Nothing,’ ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona,’ ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again],’ and ‘The Dark Lady.’

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit Bard on the Beach’s website.