Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor, Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym. In 1581, Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling. But she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theater productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage --- by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.