Miss Le Gallienne Announces the New Season
A Monologue
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  • 2021, Maine Playwrights Festival, Portland.
  • 2020, First Runner-Up, Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival National Contest, QC Theatre Workshop, Davenport, IA.
  • 2020, Southwest Harbor Public Library, ME.

"... playwright Gage’s characteristic intelligence, wit, and verve are on full display. The script navigates a bracing high-wire between her character’s public face and her interior, and Grotz is arresting as she modulates between the producer’s droll savoir-faire and her devastating suffering."--The Portland Phoenix


A young Eva Le Gallienne, 33, is holding a press conference at the Civic Repertory Theater in New York to announce the opening plays for the 1932-33 season. After five wildly successful years, she had closed the theater in 1931 to take a yearlong sabbatical, and this press conference is announcing her return. However, Eva’s “year off “ has been filled with trauma—a gruesome, near-fatal gas explosion in her home, and an international scandal surrounding her girlfriend’s divorce.
 
Eva announces at the outset “no pictures please,” and is managing to deflect questions about the fire, when suddenly a photographer sets off a flashbulb. This small explosion triggers a post-traumatic panic response in Eva, and she loses her composure. From this point on, her public persona begins to unravel as the need to be present for her experience wrestles with her desire to present a professional persona.

1 woman
Single set/bare stage
15-20 minutes