The Amazing Doctor She
Medicine Show
The Amazing Doctor She Medicine Show reveals the history of misogyny in western medicine. Oops, we mean the history of women in western medicine! (Somehow we always get those two things mixed up!)
Join our quest to recover Doctor She’s “Miracle Cure,” a wellness supplement lost since the 13th Century, much like the story of the doctor herself. In a madcap blend of humor, speculative fiction, interactive games and totally gross medical facts, we’ll share the incredible history of this extraordinary literary figure from Bocaccio and Shakespeare. And for a reasonable fee, we might even cure you!
The Full Medicine Show is Coming Soon
Thank you to everyone who participated in our developmental workshops of The Amazing Doctor She Medicine Show at Columbia University's School of the Arts! We're so encouraged by the response to our little project that we're in the process of planning additional workshops and soon🤞a fully-realized production of
Doctor She at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival!
To our new friends, welcome! Keep scrolling to learn more about this project and our process of building it. We recommend clicking around to find some silly digital easter eggs, and before you go, don't forget to join our mailing list to stay in the loop about Doctor She's future!
Who Made It?
Co-Creators:
Katie Fanning & Phoebe Brooks
Katie is a theater-maker about town with an extensive background in Early Modern Drama and advocacy for accessible arts practices. She holds an Acting MFA from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Read more: www.katiefanning.com
Phoebe is a theater-creature particularly concerned with establishing a Theater of Joy for artists and audiences alike. With this project, Phoebe finally earned a Directing MFA from Columbia University's School of the Arts. Read more: phoebebrooks.com
Production Assistant:
Janvi Sai
Props & Graphic Design by Phoebe Brooks
Workshop Costumes for
Ms. Fanning provided by
Ari Brooks &
John Hardin
Generative Workshop Participants:
Ashil Lee
Janvi Sai
Kanika Vaish
Liv Rigdon
Meredith Watson
Medical Consultants:
Dr. Ari D. Brooks, MD
Dr. Katherine Aschheim, MD
Play Test Audience:
Andrew Agress
Ashil Lee
Colin Wulff
Franny Swanson
Theo McKenna
Special Thanks:
Della & Isaac Brooks
Elena Vannoni
Julietta Appleton
Paul Coffey
How We Made It
Katie and I have been trying to find our way into William Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well for years. On a cold autumn morning at the (now shuttered) Morning Star Diner, we bemoaned the fact that the show didn't focus enough on what we thought was its most interesting attribute: a Shakespearean heroine who works as a doctor. This show is born of our combined enthusiasm for and frustration with this source material. We hope you have nearly as much fun attending the event as we've had building it!
The Amazing Doctor She Medicine Show is a blend of fact and fiction. We have no specific evidence about the actual woman upon whom Bocaccio and Shakespeare based their story, if she even existed. But though the medical prowess of Madame De Narbone is mostly a literary conceit used to advance a traditional love story, we were delighted to find information on plenty of real women who were practicing medicine in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In fact, beyond the specifics of our mysterious Doctor She, everything else we've included about the checkered history of underrepresented genders in the development of traditional Western medicine is based in truth. The outmoded theories of medicine and misogyny that our show picks through are all well-documented and we live in the long shadow of their legacy.
If you're interested in further reading on these topics, here are a few resources to get you started...
Women in Medicine
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The History of Hysteria McGill Office for Science and Society. Ada McVean B.Sc. 31 Jul 2017
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Uppity women of medieval times, Vicki León. Berkeley, Calif. : Conari Press 1997
European Medicine in the Early Modern Period
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Shakespeare And Beyond: Balancing the body and consulting the heavens: Medicine in Shakespeare's time, Esther French. August 23, 2016 Folger Shakespeare Library
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A Brief History of Bloodletting, Jennie Cohen. History.com May 30, 2012
Traveling Medicine Shows
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NYU Dept of Media Culture and Communication - Dead Media Archive, “Traveling Medicine Show”
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The Great American Medicine Show, David Armstrong, New York Prentice Hall 1991
And if you have more questions about how we made this show or where to find more interesting things to read, please get in touch! We love to chat.