Lucky Chance – Island Shakespeare Festival

Summer 2024 includes our second partnership production with Expand the Canon, featuring Aphra Behn’s The Lucky Chance, to be directed by Julie Beckman (she/her)! Julie makes her return to ISF having adapted and directed 2016’s audience favorite Jane Eyre, and we’re thrilled to welcome her back!
From Expand the Canon: “If you’re looking to gamble on love with this multi-generational comedy featuring headstrong heroines and aging Romeos… consider this raunchy Restoration Comedy about sex, marriage, and consent. The ripened, spry, and sometimes lecherous Sir Cautious Fulbank and Sir Feeble Fainwou’d used their money and status to land young wives. But both wives had young suitors they already loved… who are trying to win them back! While the old men gamble, bribe, and swindle, the young suitors assume double identities, dance with a Devil(!), and put their livelihoods on the line –– with plenty of help from their crafty ladies. Delight in this unapologetic critique of capitalism and patriarchy while asking: are our motives in love and partnership ever truly altruistic?”

About Aphra Behn: Aphra Behn is known as the first woman in the world who made her living solely off of writing. She was a novelist, a playwright, and a spy for the King! Much of Aphra Behn’s early life cannot be known for sure – some believe she obscured the details of her early life intentionally. Her husband passed away in 1665, leaving Behn in need of ways to support herself– so she turned to writing. One of her most notable works was The Rover (1681), which was one of the most successful plays of her time. She passed away in 1689, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. (from Expand the Canon)