Queen Elizabeth I

Mark Evan Chimsky

I knew I wanted to give Queen Elizabeth I a solo and for that to be her only song in the show.

I read that in 1600, at the age of 67, the Queen was wrinkled, pock-marked, and balding.

Every day, in an effort to defy time, she transformed herself into the Queen her people first saw at her coronation forty-one years before.

The white ceruse she used to paint her face contained lead—a toxin that was slowly poisoning her skin.