Chelsea Phillips

Carrying All Before Her recovers the stories of six eighteenth-century celebrity actresses who performed during pregnancy, melding public and private, persona and person, domestic and professional labor and helping to shape wider social, medical, and political conversations about gender, sexuality, pregnancy, and motherhood. Their stories deepen our understanding of celebrity, repertory, and theatre’s connection to a wider social world, and challenge notions of women’s agency and power in and beyond the professional theatre.