The Concealed Fancies by Elizabeth Brackley and Jane Cavendish

The Concealed Fancies
Film | Lion's Den Productions with Musicians in Ordinary

Written in the 1640s by sisters Elizabeth Brackley and Jane Cavendish while their father and brother fought in the English Civil War, The Concealed Fancies is a path-breaking work of early modern theatre — a play in which two women confined at home imagine their own terms for courtship and marriage. This film brings that story into startling dialogue with the present.

Set during the first COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, the film follows drama students whose stage production is suddenly cancelled — and who take matters into their own hands, performing the play they've been rehearsing entirely online. The parallel is striking: two moments of crisis, two groups of women finding creative freedom within confinement.

Directed by Paul Hopkins, with the sisters' original lyrics adapted to seventeenth-century music by John Edwards of the Musicians in Ordinary. Starring Rachel Tomasic, Chelsea Mathieu, Nell Senkevich, Johnny Thirakul, Tito Vallarino, Blair Williams, Tracy Ryan, and Amanda Brunk, with John Edwards on ukulele and Matt Antal on viola. Produced by Paul Hopkins, John Edwards, and Deanne Williams of York University. Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and York University.

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