Globe commissions female playwright
Bedlam will be the first play by a woman to be staged at the Globe
For the first time in its 400-year history, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre has commissioned a play written by a woman.
Nell Leyshon, who regularly writes plays for radio and won the 2005 Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award for Comfort Me With Apples, will have her work Bedlam staged at the historic London landmark as part of its 2010 theatre season.
Speaking to the Guardian, she said that being chosen to write for the Globe was a "privilege" and a "challenge".
"I have to be honest, it fed my writing; I thought I can't write a flabby play. I wanted to prove that women can do conflict, that they can write big structures, big stories because I've heard it too many times that women aren't as good at that," she added.
Bedlam is a fictional account of life in a London hospital for the insane during the 18th century.
The play will be performed between the 5th of September and the 1st of October and tickets are available now.
Other plays showing as part of the Kings and Rogues season at the Globe include Macbeth, Henry VIII and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Henry IV parts one and two will also premiere at the new Globe.
