“History has as much to do with imagination as anything else.”

In the early 1600s, a modest crew of male scholars and clergymen are working for King James to produce a new English translation of the Bible that will bring unity through God’s words. Their idiosyncratic and interpersonal conflicts will be embedded in one of the most influential texts in history, indelibly shaping the English language and Christian thought for centuries to come. Fast-forward to the present day where an all-female theatre troupe is creating a play about those translators—and they have more than a few notes.

A witty and fascinating interrogation of translation in all its forms, Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman’s The King James Bible Play brilliantly examines the personal and political forces within authorship and authority. Musing on the mysteries of creation itself, this gripping drama draws a parallel between past and present, reckoning with what we inherit and what we choose to believe.