When Ophelia stumbles offstage after her final scene in Hamlet, she suddenly becomes aware of the play’s entire plot, the fact that she is a fictional character, and the thousands of interpretations, performances, and reimaginings she has experienced since Hamlet was first performed. She’s every Ophelia. She’s only one Ophelia. Who the hell is she?

A one-woman exploration of gender, purpose, and the pain of being interpreted, Every Single Ophelia asks what it means to live as a side character—and what these centuries-old characters can still mean to us. Through a modern examination of the gender and sexual politics of Hamlet, the play considers how Ophelia has been used as a prism for women’s experiences across generations.