Louisa May Incest
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Carolyn Gage and Julia Reddy in Louisa May Incest
  • 2020, Smith College, Commencement Studio Production, Northampton, MA. (Commencement cancelled due to coronavirus)
  • Published in Nine Short Plays, Outskirts Press, CO.
  • 2015, Roslindale & Easthampton, MA and Bethlehem, NH as part of Gage on Stage.
  • 2015, PortFringe, Portland, ME.
  • 2010, Trinity Valley Community College, Athens, TX.
  • North Central College, Naperville, IL.
  •  Provincetown Fringe Festival, Women’s Week, Provincetown, MA.
  • James Madison University, Roanoke, VA.
  • Cork Arts Theatre, Ireland. (staged reading)
  • Frank F. Calo Spotlight on Festival, Chasama Theatre, NYC.
  • Maine Assoc. of Community Theatre Festival, Rockland, ME.
  • Cauldron and Labrys Productions, Portland, ME.
  • Featured at National Women’s Music Festival, Muncie, IN.
  • Theatre on the Square, Indianapolis, IN.
  • Missouri Southern State College, Joplin, MO.
  • Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon.
  • Green Highway Theatre, Chicago.
  • Academy of Performing Arts, Maui, HI.
  • Iris Productions,  Lexington, KY.
  • New Village Productions, NYC.
  • East Coast Lesbian Festival, Binghampton, NY.
  • Lambda Players, Sacramento, CA.
  • Common Stage (staged reading), Woodstock, NY.
  • Women in Philosophy Conference,  Portland, ME. (staged reading)
  • NTM Productions, Ashland, OR.  (tour to Corvallis, OR).
  • WomanKraft, Tucson, AZ.
  • National Finalist, Lambda Literary Awards in Drama (The Second Coming of  Joan of Arc and Other Plays, HerBooks, Inc., Santa Cruz, CA)
  • Finalist, San Francisco PlaywrightsCenterDramaRama Festival.
  • Reviewed in Lesbian Review of Books, Altadena, CA.
  • Published in Lesbian Culture (edited by Penelope and Wolfe, Crossing Press,  Freedom, CA,).
  • Published in Trivia, Amherst, MA.

"... smart, witty, important... strong-minded, big-hearted storytelling."--The Chicago Reader.  

“… crackled with energy and glowed with warmth… illustrated all that is the best about theatre.” ---The Maui News, HI.

“… an overlay of brilliantly ironic humor on the utterly serious issues with which it deals.” --Lithiagraph, Ashland, OR.

“Watching Jo confront Louisa, the audience’s collective belief marked a new point in taking ourselves seriously as people with a herstory; as creators and receivers of lesbian mysticism and art. Lesbian writers, theorists, and professors--in large numbers at ECLF [East Coast Lesbian Festival]--were absolutely transported by the academic significance of Gage’s work.” --Introduction by Bonnie Morris in Amazon All Stars: Thirteen  Lesbian Plays (New York: Applause Books, 1996),

Louisa May Alcott has locked her alter-ego, Jo March, out of her study in order to finish Little Women alone. Jo manages to break in. She confronts Louisa about her desire to end their collaboration. Louisa admits her intention to have Jo burn all her writing and marry the aging and self-righteous Professor at the end of the book.

Jo knows her author better than Louisa knows herself, and she begins to uncover Louisa’s true motives in violating her own creation. When Jo introduces evidence of Bronson Alcott’s child molesting and Louisa’s lesbianism, the conflict between Jo and Louisa becomes a life-and-death struggle for control of the book.

Two women
30 minutes
Single set

ONLINE REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS:

"A Big Show About Little Women with Sarah McCoy and Carolyn Gage," Interview with Cindy Wolf Boynton for Literary New England  on BlogTalk Radio, May 1, 2012.

"Skeletons in the Closet: Louisa May Incest and Calamity Jane Sends a Message to her Daughter," by Carol Burbank, Chicago Reader, Jan. 25, 1996.