Paradise Lost
by Erin Shields
East 15 Acting School • MFA International Acting • The Bridewell Theatre • 2025
East 15 Acting School • MFA International Acting • The Bridewell Theatre • 2025
A feminist retelling of Milton’s epic transformed through Hyperpop and theatrical excess into a rebellious battle over knowledge, freedom and who gets to write the rules.
The ProductionErin Shields’ Paradise Lost turns Milton’s epic on its head, placing a female Satan at the centre of the story and allowing her to interrogate the structures of power, oppression and obedience that underpin the creation myth.
I wanted to push the irreverence of the adaptation even further. We approached the production with the energy of a hyperpop concert, using music, movement and heightened theatricality to turn the battle between Heaven and Hell into something loud, playful and rebellious. Rather than treating Milton as something precious, we embraced the collision between the seventeenth century and the present day. The epic could be ridiculous, sexy, funny and enormous — while still asking serious questions about knowledge, freedom and who has the authority to decide what is right. |
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Making Milton Hyperpop
Making Milton Hyperpop gave us a contemporary language for the scale and excess already sitting inside Milton’s story. Heaven, Hell, creation, rebellion and the fall of humanity are enormous ideas; I didn’t want to make them smaller in order to stage them.
Instead, we pushed towards excess. Music, movement, colour and performance allowed the world to feel deliberately heightened, creating something closer to a gig or musical than a conventional staging of an epic poem.
The clash between Milton and Hyperpop was part of the pleasure. A text carrying centuries of cultural weight could suddenly exist alongside a musical form that is synthetic, disruptive, playful and constantly reinventing itself.
Instead, we pushed towards excess. Music, movement, colour and performance allowed the world to feel deliberately heightened, creating something closer to a gig or musical than a conventional staging of an epic poem.
The clash between Milton and Hyperpop was part of the pleasure. A text carrying centuries of cultural weight could suddenly exist alongside a musical form that is synthetic, disruptive, playful and constantly reinventing itself.
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Satan's Gig
Turning a casting solution into the theatrical language of the production.
The role of Satan is normally played by a single actor. For this production, a casting choice led me to split the role between two performers: Narrator Satan, who has already lived through the story and is telling it to us, and Story Satan, who we watch experiencing those events as they unfold.
With Charli XCX and hyperpop already central to the concept, I began to imagine Narrator Satan as the frontwoman of her own gig. The songs I had originally planned to use as transition music became hers to perform live, transforming the production into something part play, part gig and part musical.
Each song was chosen for its emotional relationship to the story. Rather than stopping the action, the music became another way for Satan to communicate what she had experienced. It was as though we had come to Satan’s gig and, between songs, she was telling us the story of how she got to where she is now.
I was interested in Satan not simply as the villain of the story, but as a woman questioning why power operates the way it does. She is furious, funny, charismatic and deeply flawed — capable of challenging oppression while also causing enormous destruction herself. I didn’t want to resolve those contradictions or make her “right”; I wanted her to have the complexity traditionally afforded to male antiheroes.
Splitting the role ultimately allowed us to see Satan from two perspectives at once: the woman living through these events and the woman looking back on them, taking control of how her story is told.
With Charli XCX and hyperpop already central to the concept, I began to imagine Narrator Satan as the frontwoman of her own gig. The songs I had originally planned to use as transition music became hers to perform live, transforming the production into something part play, part gig and part musical.
Each song was chosen for its emotional relationship to the story. Rather than stopping the action, the music became another way for Satan to communicate what she had experienced. It was as though we had come to Satan’s gig and, between songs, she was telling us the story of how she got to where she is now.
I was interested in Satan not simply as the villain of the story, but as a woman questioning why power operates the way it does. She is furious, funny, charismatic and deeply flawed — capable of challenging oppression while also causing enormous destruction herself. I didn’t want to resolve those contradictions or make her “right”; I wanted her to have the complexity traditionally afforded to male antiheroes.
Splitting the role ultimately allowed us to see Satan from two perspectives at once: the woman living through these events and the woman looking back on them, taking control of how her story is told.
Heaven, Hell, + The Ensemble
Working with a company of thirteen, I wanted the ensemble to be integral to both the world of the story and the gig happening around it. Within the narrative, the Chorus of the Damned and the Chorus of the Chosen became reflections of one another, with each ensemble performer having a counterpart in the opposite realm.
Outside those roles, they became Satan's backup dancers — our “Internet It Girls,” inspired by the world of Charli XCX's 360. Like the dancers supporting a headline act, they helped Narrator Satan perform her version of the story, moving between characters within the narrative and the heightened gig world surrounding it.
Movement was central to connecting those different identities. We built choreography from expressive gestures drawn from the themes and ideas within the play, developing individual physical responses into larger ensemble sequences. The actors could shift from the Chosen to the Damned to Satan's It Girls, changing their relationship to the story while remaining part of the same physical world.
That gave the ensemble a dual purpose: they could inhabit Satan's story and help her tell it. Rather than sitting around the central action, they became the machinery of the production — chorus, characters, dancers and collaborators in the spectacle Satan was creating for us.
Outside those roles, they became Satan's backup dancers — our “Internet It Girls,” inspired by the world of Charli XCX's 360. Like the dancers supporting a headline act, they helped Narrator Satan perform her version of the story, moving between characters within the narrative and the heightened gig world surrounding it.
Movement was central to connecting those different identities. We built choreography from expressive gestures drawn from the themes and ideas within the play, developing individual physical responses into larger ensemble sequences. The actors could shift from the Chosen to the Damned to Satan's It Girls, changing their relationship to the story while remaining part of the same physical world.
That gave the ensemble a dual purpose: they could inhabit Satan's story and help her tell it. Rather than sitting around the central action, they became the machinery of the production — chorus, characters, dancers and collaborators in the spectacle Satan was creating for us.
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The Freedom to KnowUnderneath all the theatrical excess was a much simpler question: is obedience still a virtue when the rules themselves deserve to be questioned?
The story of the Fall is traditionally one of temptation and punishment. Shields’ adaptation allows us to look again at the decision to seek knowledge — not simply as humanity’s great failure, but as an act of curiosity, agency and rebellion. That tension between freedom and consequence sat underneath the production, even at its most ridiculous. |
Building the World
The world of Paradise Lost was built around theatrical excess: part epic, part gig and part musical. Working with the creative team, we created a space that could hold Heaven, Hell and Satan’s hyperpop performance world, using design, movement, voice and stage combat to support the scale of the story while keeping the actors at the centre of it.
Creative Team
Writer: Erin Shields
Original Text: John Milton
Director: Kay Brattan
Assistant Director: Jifan Huang
Designer: Mila Sanders
Movement and Intimacy Direction: Christina Kapadocha
Voice Coach: Colin Sadler
Fight Direction: Lawrence Carmichael
Photos by Andrew H Williams
Company
MFA International Acting Class of 2024/25 · 13 actors
Writer: Erin Shields
Original Text: John Milton
Director: Kay Brattan
Assistant Director: Jifan Huang
Designer: Mila Sanders
Movement and Intimacy Direction: Christina Kapadocha
Voice Coach: Colin Sadler
Fight Direction: Lawrence Carmichael
Photos by Andrew H Williams
Company
MFA International Acting Class of 2024/25 · 13 actors
