RAG DOLL ON A BOMB SITE to Open at Hudson Guild Theatre

Rag Doll on a Bomb Site is a solo musical that is apart of the Hollywood Fringe Festival selection. The show will take palce at Hudson Guild Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90038.

Book, music, and lyrics by Shelley Cooper. The show was directed and developed by Kelsey Miller, produced and developed by Jessica Lynn Johnson, Soaring Solo Studios, and in special collaboration with the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.

Previews begin on Sunday, June 8, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. Regular performances will begin on Sunday, June 15 at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 18 at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, June 21 at 8:30 p.m. Estimated running time is fifty minutes with no intermission. Tickets go on sale on May 1.

At previous Hollywood Fringe Festivals, Shelley Cooper portrayed Maria Callas and Jenny Lind. Now, she adds to her gallery of famous, historically significant singers as she embodies Lotte Lenya in Rag Doll on a Bomb Site.

The show is based on an actual incident in Lenya's career. It's 1928, and the premiere of a sold-out house for The Threepenny Opera. Lenya is cast in the role of Jenny Diver and is set to sing the opening number, Mack the Knife. Somehow, Lenya's name has been omitted from the playbill. Her husband, the composer Kurt Weill bursts into her dressing room, demanding that the performance be canceled. No one can insult his wife in this fashion.

Lenya tries to calm her husband down. Performing Jenny Diver, a character with whom she identifies on a number of levels, is far more important to her than avenging the oversight of her omitted name on a playbill. Before her marriage to Weill, hers was a hard-knock life on the gritty, poor side of Vienna. She grew up in a slum, beaten repeatedly by a cruel father, endured hunger and crushing poverty, rape, and repeatedly found herself in morally compromising positions as she struggled to survive and advance herself.