A Mother's Legacy

World Premiere

A Mother’s Legacy brings to life the final days of Mary Wollstonecraft, the pioneering writer and philosopher who died just ten days after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Godwin—later known to the world as Mary Shelley. In the eighteenth century, when maternal mortality was tragically common, literate women often wrote “mother’s legacies”: letters of guidance and affection left behind for their children.

Drawing from Wollstonecraft’s own writings, this work imagines the legacy she might have crafted for her newborn daughter—an intimate blend of historical text and theatrical invention that honors both women’s voices across generations.

“Addressing these memoirs to you, my child...my dear girl, you may gather the instruction, the counsel, which is meant rather to exercise than influence your mind.”—Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman