Looking for Mariam, 1613
Director: Elizabeth Kolkovich
Executive Producer: Sarah Neville
Assistant Director: Tamara Mahadin
Video Editor: Doug Dangler
Shakespeare famously wrote for an “all-male” stage, but it is less well-known that early modern Englishwomen also wrote plays and took part in making theatre in a variety of ways. Around the same time as Shakespeare was writing Othello, one of his female contemporaries, Elizabeth Cary, wrote a play about Mariam, the second wife of King Herod of Judea. First printed in 1613, Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam explores issues such as the ethics of divorce, the threat of women’s public speech, the dangers of defying tyrants, the norms of dramatic convention, and the construction of racial stereotypes.
This full-length documentary film, the eleventh production of Lord Denney’s Players, explores the tragedy of Mariam’s history and possible futures, featuring performed scenes and interviews from experts around the world. Written and produced by students enrolled in Ohio State’s ENGL 4520.02: Special Topics in Shakespeare under the direction of Elizabeth Kolkovich, Looking for Mariam, 1613 premiered on the Department of English’s YouTube channel in 2024.
The documentary tells the story of a play deeply invested in ideas about justice. It does not provide easy answers, but it calls attention to gender inequity and discrimination based on racial and ethnic identities. It asks viewers to think about tyranny and how to f ight for a just place for a learned dramatist whose gender left her out of our textbooks and conversations for centuries.
Full cast and crew information
Elizabeth Kolkovich is an Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University. She researches and teaches sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature, especially Shakespeare and women writers. In 2024, she directed Elizabeth Cary’s Tragedy of Mariam for Lord Denney’s Players, an OSU theatrical group dedicated to performing early English plays.