Leading Ladies
A Cabaret Revue
Paperback
eBook (EPUB)
ebook (PDF)
_Lead sheets available in print or as a PDF download.
Music by Teresa Wilhelmi
Sample of Songs
At the opening of the play, Mary, a young actor tortured by doubts about her ability, debates whether or not she should abandon her career in “The Voice of My Critics.” The dressing room comes alive with ghosts of famous women actors, and one by one they reenact critical moments in their own careers, when they had to confront fear and doubt:
A note about the music: The fourteen musical numbers run the gamut from bump-and-grind to gospel stomp, from three-part harmonies to piano bar blues. Cabaret numbers with the emphasis on entertainment.
Six women
Two hours
Single set
Sample of Songs
- 2020, Pulley and Buttonhole Theatre, Jenkintown, PA.
- Des Moines Onstage, Iowa.
- Staged reading, Music in a Box, the Dramatists Guild, NYC.
- SUNY Rockland Community College workshop production.
- Wild Wimmin Theatre, Rochester, NY workshop production.
- First Place, Musical Theatre, Seattle New Plays Buffet, juried by Civic Light Opera.
- National Finalist, Aggie Players Playwriting Competition, Texas A & M University.
At the opening of the play, Mary, a young actor tortured by doubts about her ability, debates whether or not she should abandon her career in “The Voice of My Critics.” The dressing room comes alive with ghosts of famous women actors, and one by one they reenact critical moments in their own careers, when they had to confront fear and doubt:
- SARAH SIDDONS, fired from Drury Lane, realizes her meteoric rise to fame was only the payoff for David Garrick’s sexual exploitation of her. She resolves to play the provinces until she can make it back to London by herself. She belts out “When the Show Is Over,” the strip song to end all strip songs.
- CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN, laughed off the stage for being fat, determines not to give in to humiliation with her inspirational “Audience of One.”
- ELEANORA DUSE, pregnant and abandoned by her lover at the time of her big theatre break, pulls herself together so the show can go on. The Stage Manager joins her for a theatrical soft-shoe duet, “Improvise!”
- SARAH BERNHARDT, rejected by French audiences who have not forgiven her for deserting the national theatre, turns the tables on Bastille Day at the Paris Opera. Thumbing her nose at traditional proprieties, she sings, “I Know What Pleases the People,” a song which gives her the opportunity to reprise a half dozen of her best on-stage dying effects.
- MINNIE FISKE, the longest holdout against the notorious Syndicate, rallies her troupe to give up their New York run when she learns that the theatre where they are playing is “all sold out.” Her loyal company joins her in the gospel stomp, “All Sold Out” - but not before their rambunctious rendition in three-part Sweet-Adeline harmony of “An Actress Needs a Home.”
- LAURETTE TAYLOR, after fifteen years without work, overcomes the stigma of alcoholism to stage a risky comeback in an unknown vehicle --- The Glass Menagerie. Putting on “a little more rouge to hide all the blue,” she sings a compelling torch song to “The Old Ingenue.”
A note about the music: The fourteen musical numbers run the gamut from bump-and-grind to gospel stomp, from three-part harmonies to piano bar blues. Cabaret numbers with the emphasis on entertainment.
Six women
Two hours
Single set
