Hecht, Sternhagen & Sullivan Set for Staged Reading of MISS LULU BETT, 4/12

Miss Lulu Bett, a comedy of manners by the first woman playwright to win a Pulitzer Prize, Zona Gale (1874-1938), will be presented in a staged reading 90 years after its Broadway debut by Women's Project, Julie Crosby, Producing Artistic Director, for one night only, Monday, April 12, at 7:00pm, at Women's Project, 424 West 55th Street.

Directed by Joan Vail Thorne, Miss Lulu Bett stars Jessica Hecht in title role, Frances Sternhagen as Mrs. Bett, Michael Countryman, Greg Keller, Reed Birney and Stella Bernstein (a.k.a Jessica Hecht's daughter). Acclaimed songstress K.T. Sullivan will sing songs from the period.

Miss Lulu Bett examines the awakening of a shy, overworked spinster who rebels against her exploitative family and achieves happiness on her own terms.

Miss Lulu Bett was given a tryout at Sing Sing Prison in front of one thousand prisoners a few days before it bowed at the Belmont Theatre on Broadway. Miss Lulu Bett opened on December 27, 1920 to a thrashing by Alexander Woollcott of The New York Times, who was none-the-less dazzled by the cast. A surprised Mr. Woollcott must have fallen off his Algonquin Round
Table chair when the play won the Pulitzer for Drama in 1921.

Zona Gale (1874-1938)

Zona Gale was born in 1874, in the small Wisconsin town of Portage, which would become the setting for most of Ms. Gale's novels, stories, and plays. After finishing college, she worked as a journalist, first in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then in New York, at the New York World. Ms. Gale first won attention for her short stories set in the fictional town of Friendship Village. Published in 1908, Friendship Village proved very popular and she went on to write a series of story collections in the same setting. Ms. Gale is perhaps best known for her novel, Miss Lulu Bett, which was published to wide acclaim in 1920 before the author adapted it for the Broadway stage. After the realism of Miss Lulu Bett, Ms. Gale's novels became more spiritual, creating a world where social ills could be solved through a kind of transcendentalist enlightenment.

In addition to her fiction writing, Ms. Gale was an energetic supporter of the La Follettes and progressive causes. She was an active member of the National Women's Party, and she lobbied extensively for the 1921 Wisconsin Equal Rights Law. Ms. Gale's activism on behalf of women was her way to solve politically a problem she returned to repeatedly in her novels: women's frustration at their lack of opportunities. Ms. Gale continued writing and publishing until her death in December 1938. (The New York Times very impressive 1700 word obituary:
www.select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B15FA3F5F1B7A93CAAB1789D95F4C8385F9&scp=1&sq=MISS%20LULU%20BETT%20By%20Zona%20Gale&st=cse .)

Tickets are $50, $25, $15 (WP members). The number to call for tickets is 212.765.1706 or, via email, tickets@WomensProject.org.

32 Years of Presenting Women Theater Artists
Founded in 1978 by Julia Miles, and now under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Julie Crosby, Women's Project provides a stage for women playwrights and directors, who even today receive fewer than 20% of professional production opportunities nationwide.

Women's Project (WP) produces theater created by women, providing a forum for women's perspectives on political, social, and cultural topics. During its 32 years, countless artists have achieved significant recognition through WP productions, including Anne Bogart, Eve Ensler, Maria Irene Fornes, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Leigh Silverman, and Anna Deavere Smith, among the many. WP has produced staged over 600 mainstage productions and developmental projects, and published ten anthologies of plays by women. In 1998, WP purchased a historic off-Broadway venue on Manhattan's West 55th Street, making WP the first and only women's theater company to hold the keys to its own stage.

Women's Project is on a roll: Freshwater, Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, crooked, Sand, Or, and Smudge. Zona Gale would be proud.

 

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