Dr Emma Whipday is the first British writer to win the US competition which is creating a modern canon of companion pieces to the bard’s 38 plays.

Dr Whipday, a Lecturer in Renaissance Literature in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, has won $25,000 and will see her play open in the US on 9 May next year.

The Defamation of Cicely Lee, isinspiredby Shakespeare’s Cymbelline.  In Corbridge in 1611, maidservant Cicely Lee is accused of committing adultery with her former master. What is the truth of it – and will Cicely’s voice be heard? The Defamation of Cicely Lee puts Cymbeline in conversation with the #MeToo era, and asks what we inherit from the past, and how telling our stories can create a more equal future.

Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries

Even though The Defamation of Cicely Lee is inspired by a play written in the 1600s, the themes Shakespeare are still relevant today, explained Dr Whipday.

“I'm obsessed by the bedchamber scene in Cymbeline, where Jachimo spies on Imogen as she sleeps in order to accuse her of adultery,” she said. “I've written about it in my book Shakespeare's Domestic Tragedies, and I've had many discussions about it with my students: Is voyeurism a form of violence? Is it dangerous for a woman to be talked about? Why are men's words believed so much more easily than the words of women?

“It seems to me that the questions Shakespeare is asking in Cymbeline are the same questions we're asking in response to #MeToo today. Engaging with Cymbeline allowed me to imagine myself back into Jacobean England, where a woman's reputation could be destroyed by a single word, and to place my characters near the ruins of Hadrian's Wall, where the reminders of Cymbeline's Roman Britain are all around.”

The Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries competition was launched by the American Shakespeare Center in 2017 to inspire the world’s playwrights to compose original works in conversation with Shakespeare’s classics and in keeping with his staging conditions.

Each year, the two winners are chosen through an anonymous, multi-tiered, blind-reading process. Each playwright receives a cash prize of $25,000 and travel and housing to be in residence in Staunton, Virginia, during the workshop and rehearsal periods. Each also will see the world premiere production of her play performed in repertory with its Shakespeare partner at the ASC’s Blackfriars Playhouse, a recreation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre.

“It’s an absolute joy to be part of Shakespeare's New Contemporaries, “said Dr Whipday. “ I wrote this play hoping that I might get to see it performed by the ASC some day. I still can't quite believe it – and I'm so very happy that this play will get to come to life in the way I dreamed!”