A POISONOUS AFFAIR: Confessions of a Royal Mistress starring Brooke Bloom at The Rockefeller Lounge at Riverside Church

Hailed by The New York Times for her "delicate, white-knuckled composure" Brooke Bloom plays Louis XIV's favorite mistress and has something very important to tell us. Madame de Montespan bares her soul (or does she?) in a new theatrical production, bringing glamour, gossip, and palace intrigue into her gripping tale. Is she a murderous villain or an innocent victim of public frenzy? Only you can be the judge, as actress Brooke Bloom stars in a never before seen one-woman play by Gonzalo X. Ruiz and based on Montespan's published memoirs, offering intimate glimpses of Versailles under Louis XIV's reign and set to the magical music of Marin Marais. Françoise Athenais Rochechouart de Montemart, Marquise de Montespan, was one of the most fascinating personalities at the court. A famously beautiful, intelligent and witty woman, she bore several children to the king as his official mistress, while setting court fashion as the leading lady of the pageant that was Versailles. Her fall from grace was equally spectacular, likely as a result of accusations against her in the most infamous court scandal of the time, accusations which were never revealed to her. Modern scholars are split on the question of her guilt or innocence. "A Poisonous Affair" imagines Montespan after leaving the court being privately told of the allegations that brought about her downfall, and reassessing her relationship to Louis XIV.