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In Athens, Alexander falls in love with Theban captive Campaspe and commissions Apelles to paint her portrait. Apelles and Campaspe fall in love, and Alexander relinquishes her so they can be together. Alexander also debates with Diogenes and other philosophers while his distractedness affects military discipline.
The courtier Endymion loves Queen Cynthia and rejects his former lover Tellus, who has him enchanted into a decades-long sleep. Cynthia and Endymion’s friend Eumenides seek a cure while several romantic and comic subplots unfold; Cynthia’s favor finally restores Endymion and resolves the court’s conflicts. The comedy’s allegory presents Cynthia as a model for Elizabeth I.
A genderqueer reworking of John Lyly’s Gallathea, recast as a trans love story set against a climate crisis.
To evade a sacrifice demanded by Neptune, shepherds disguise their daughters Gallathea and Phillida as boys and send them into the woods. The two meet and fall in love without knowing each other’s sex, while Cupid’s mischief entangles Diana’s nymphs. The supernatural conflict ends when Neptune withdraws his demand and Venus allows the lovers to remain together, though the promised transformation is not shown.
In Arcadia, Cupid punishes three nymphs for rejecting their shepherd suitors by transforming them into a rock, rose and bird. A subplot follows Erisichthon’s punishment after he destroys a sacred tree and his daughter Protea’s escape from servitude. Ceres persuades Cupid to restore the nymphs, who agree to marry the shepherds.
King Midas asks Bacchus for the power to turn everything he touches to gold, then suffers when his clothes, food, wine, and beard all transform. Later, after judging a contest between Apollo and Pan in Pan’s favour, Midas receives ass’s ears. His daughter Sophronia seeks help at Delphi, and Midas’s barber Motto is drawn into a comic subplot about the golden beard and the secret ears.
In a farcical rural comedy, two wealthy fathers try to arrange marriages between their foolish children while two poorer young lovers are kept apart by their families. Disguises, scheming pages and a secret exchange of babies unravel the fathers’ plans; Mother Bombie, a local cunning woman, helps reveal the truth and enable a happy ending.
In Syracuse, Venus gives beauty to ferryman Phao, attracting the court women and Queen Sapho. Sapho and Phao fall in love but are divided by rank; Cupid cures Sapho’s passion, then falls for her himself and remains with her as a son.
In a mythic pastoral world, Nature creates Pandora and the seven planetary gods successively influence her temperament. She marries shepherd Stesias, but their relationship founders amid the planets’ shifting powers; when Pandora chooses the Moon, Nature condemns Stesias to follow her without acting against her. The comedy is written in blank verse and framed as an allegory for Queen Elizabeth’s court.
In Athens, Alexander falls in love with Theban captive Campaspe and commissions Apelles to paint her portrait. Apelles and Campaspe fall in love, and Alexander relinquishes her so they can be together. Alexander also debates with Diogenes and other philosophers while his distractedness affects military discipline.
The courtier Endymion loves Queen Cynthia and rejects his former lover Tellus, who has him enchanted into a decades-long sleep. Cynthia and Endymion’s friend Eumenides seek a cure while several romantic and comic subplots unfold; Cynthia’s favor finally restores Endymion and resolves the court’s conflicts. The comedy’s allegory presents Cynthia as a model for Elizabeth I.
A genderqueer reworking of John Lyly’s Gallathea, recast as a trans love story set against a climate crisis.
To evade a sacrifice demanded by Neptune, shepherds disguise their daughters Gallathea and Phillida as boys and send them into the woods. The two meet and fall in love without knowing each other’s sex, while Cupid’s mischief entangles Diana’s nymphs. The supernatural conflict ends when Neptune withdraws his demand and Venus allows the lovers to remain together, though the promised transformation is not shown.
In Arcadia, Cupid punishes three nymphs for rejecting their shepherd suitors by transforming them into a rock, rose and bird. A subplot follows Erisichthon’s punishment after he destroys a sacred tree and his daughter Protea’s escape from servitude. Ceres persuades Cupid to restore the nymphs, who agree to marry the shepherds.
King Midas asks Bacchus for the power to turn everything he touches to gold, then suffers when his clothes, food, wine, and beard all transform. Later, after judging a contest between Apollo and Pan in Pan’s favour, Midas receives ass’s ears. His daughter Sophronia seeks help at Delphi, and Midas’s barber Motto is drawn into a comic subplot about the golden beard and the secret ears.
In a farcical rural comedy, two wealthy fathers try to arrange marriages between their foolish children while two poorer young lovers are kept apart by their families. Disguises, scheming pages and a secret exchange of babies unravel the fathers’ plans; Mother Bombie, a local cunning woman, helps reveal the truth and enable a happy ending.
In Syracuse, Venus gives beauty to ferryman Phao, attracting the court women and Queen Sapho. Sapho and Phao fall in love but are divided by rank; Cupid cures Sapho’s passion, then falls for her himself and remains with her as a son.
In a mythic pastoral world, Nature creates Pandora and the seven planetary gods successively influence her temperament. She marries shepherd Stesias, but their relationship founders amid the planets’ shifting powers; when Pandora chooses the Moon, Nature condemns Stesias to follow her without acting against her. The comedy is written in blank verse and framed as an allegory for Queen Elizabeth’s court.