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August Play: Deep Dive On Desjardins
August: Our *Favorite* play
This month’s feature
Le Favori (1665)
by Marie-Catherine Desjardins
Thanks & congrats
Three cheers to Midsommer Flight, our fabulous Chicago partner, for a fun reading of this play!
A bit more on Marie-Catherine Desjardins:
The biography of Marie-Catherine Desjardins, better known as Madame de Villedieu, is debatable. Some historians regarded her as a flamboyant, scandalous woman – but 20th century scholars have since swept away those sensationalist stories to reveal that Marie-Catherine Desjardins was a hard-working, sensible, talented woman who longed for respectability… but had the misfortune to fall in love with a man who shamefully betrayed her.
Marie-Catherine Desjardins was a trailblazing woman of her time. She was the first woman writer to have her plays professionally staged in the French capital, the first to be reviewed in a gazette, and Le Favori is the first play by a woman to receive a command performance at the French court. Once it was known that the king and court had applauded a work by a female playwright, a barrier had been removed, and dramatic composition was henceforth a legitimate sphere of activity for women. Le Favori marks a crucial breakthrough for women playwrights.
From our friends: a play about the first woman playwright!
The Abbey is in trouble – and only Hrotsvit’s play can save them! The canonesses need to impress Emperor Otto (who is visiting tonight!) with a performance…
…by Hrotsvit, the first western woman who ever dared to write a play. Embroiled in lustful conflicts, the stress of daily prayers, and impassioned moral arguments, can these women save Gandersheim Abbey from male takeover? Find out in this hot goss from 10th Century Saxony!
Directed by Emily Lyon, Artistic Director of Hedgepig
Sunday, Sept 1 @ 5pm
Expand the Canon night! Discount code: ETC20
And get excited –– our 2024 List will launch in October…!
Expand the Canon is sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the NYSCA-A.R.T./New York Creative Opportunity Fund (A Statewide Theatre Regrant Program), and the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC).
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