Dr. Sara B.T. Thiel explores how the musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s EMMA makes us love the story’s heroine—despite ourselves. Today you’ll hear clips from the musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, written by Paul Gordon and directed by CST Artistic Director Barbara Gaines in 2020. Sara Thiel is the Public Humanities Manager at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and a scholar of Shakespeare in performance. Her book, PERFORMING PREGNANCY ON THE EARLY MODERN ENGLISH STAGE, 1603-1642, is under contract with Routledge’s Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama series. She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. To see photos and video from EMMA, or to learn more about the cast, crew, and creative team visit www.chicagoshakes.com/emma. Have a question about something you heard in this episode? Want to tell us about your favorite moments at CST? Email us at [email protected] or call us at 312-667-5631 and we’ll respond in a future episode. And don’t forget to subscribe to get all of the latest updates from ASIDES. This episode was produced by Sara B.T. Thiel, Margaret McCall, Forrest Williams, and Aaron Roberts, with editing by Forrest Williams, and additional support from Joe Disbrow and Krissi McEachern. Special thanks to Erin Hunter for her help transcribing this episode. You can find our episode transcriptions at www.chicagoshakes.com/asides. As you enjoy this episode, we hope you’ll consider making a gift to support other programs like this through our Brave New World Campaign. Together, we can serve artists, audiences, students, and our community in this time of great need. Please visit www.chicagoshakes.com/BraveNewWorld.