The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women

The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women
An Interactive Courtroom Drama
Paperback (Published by Samuel French)
eBook

Catholic University Production

2025, New Surry Theatre, Blue Hill, ME.
2025, Eileen and Allen Aines Studio Theatre, Southern Utah Univ., Cedar City, UT.
2024, Ramapo High School, Franklin Lakes, NJ.
2024, St. Mary's Episcopal School, Memphis, TN.
2023, Student Life Yeshiva University, Stern College Dramatic Society, Schottenstein Theater.
2020, Brazen-Faced Varlets, Buffalo, NY.
2020, taught in "Theatre of Law" course taught by New York City College of Technology, Humanities, and Law & Paralegal Studies Departments.
2019, International Finalist, Venice Biennale, Competition for Emerging Directors.
2019, Agnes Irwin School, Bryn Mawr, PA.
2019, McGill University, Montreal.
2019, translated to Italian.
2018, Baton Rouge Magnet High School, Baton Rouge, LA.
2018 Rescued From the Mess, Ashtabula, OH.
2018 Stephens College, Warehouse Theatre, Columbia, MO.
Nominated for New York Innovative Theatre Awards.
Published in Three Comedies, Gage Press.
Boquete Players, Boquete, Panama.
Crossroads School, Santa Monica, CA.
Theatre Unbound, Minneapolis.
Another Country Productions, (reading) Boston.
Misericordia University, Dallas, PA.
Oldfields School, Glencoe, MD
Theatre Ventoux, Fresno, CA.
Little Hibiscus Productions, NYC
Stagedoor Manor, NYC.
Stella Adler Studio, NYC.
Columba University, New Zealand
Echo Theatre (reading), Dallas, TX.
Women’s Theatre Project, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Catholic University, Georgetown, DC.
Belmont University, TN.
Cottey College, Nevada, MO.
Venus Theatre, Washington, DC.
Boston College, Boston.
Iowa Women’s Correctional Institution, Mitchellville. (Abridged)
Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA
Cauldron & Labrys Productions, Portland, ME.
National finalist, Jane Chambers Award, Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
Published by Samuel French, Inc., NYC.
Subject of feature article in The Washington Post.
Excerpted in The Best Women's Stage Monologues of 2003.(Smith & Kraus).

Reviews and Synopsis

Delta Rae Giordano as the Baroness

“Carolyn Gage’s raucous, multilayered script explores issues of empathy, loyalty, and betrayal among women...” --The Washington Post.

“Verdict: An unexpected delight… ” --Miami Herald, FL.

“… farcical humor, imaginative plot twists, and just pure theatrical fun...” --South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Ft. Lauderdale.

"Elegantly conceived...A feminist Noises Off." - Washington City Press

“… powerful new play… thoughtfully written...” --San Diego Lesbian Press, CA.

“… fascinating and complex play…”--Fresno Beehive.com

“The Anastasia Trials is many things—farce, social history, debate play, agitprop, audience-participation melodrama, satire… makes the head reel!” --San Diego Union-Tribune.

“I am constantly amazed at Carolyn’s ability to make complex social issues not only accessible but also irresistibly fascinating… the play… [The Anastasia Trials ] touched us, made us laugh and gripped us in a white-knuckle intensity usually found only in Hitchcock films.” --R.J. McComish, Literary Manager of the Portland Stage Company, Portland, Maine.

“… fabulously interesting, brilliantly thought-provoking and exquisitely funny… masterpiece of feminist theater...” --off our backs, Washington, DC.

"Each performance could potentially have a different result and many students saw every performance just so they could see how the show ended."--At Oldfields, Glencoe, MD.

"... reckless comedic tour de force... a strange night of theatre wherein the audience exits with the dubious and possibly schizophrenic understanding that we are all Anastasia, Grand Duchess to The Tsar of Russia." -- Blogcritics (Guy de Fredericis, Buffalo.)

"Four Stars"-- Buffalo News, NY.

"In brief, it’s a hoot."--Buffalo Theatre Guide

"In this “play within a play” format, we are also witness to several woman-to-woman microaggressions and a few spectacular major aggressions. It did not feel scripted, but very real, and very much so when the players seem to “go off script” and the other players react to that... We are presented with sensitive, hot-button topics that are very much of our contemporary world."--Buffalo Rising

"Our Saturday show was over sold out (which hasn’t happened since 2007 at our student run theatre) we had to add so many chairs to audience that the actors had to adjust to their stage space. Here is a quote from our Chairwoman who also played Diane-Erika Wilson, 'The one word we kept hearing was 'relevant.' Every audience we had was engaged because the issues in this show are so pertinent to what is going on in our country right now. We, as the Warehouse, were so pleased with this show because we could see people really thinking, and we heard them talking about the show even as they left the theatre.' I saw the show the same day Kavanaugh was confirmed. The speech at the end when Diane talks about the rights of the victims and survivors the women who have been silenced and censored etc… it was moving to hear these words echo what’s happening in the world around us."-- Lili Javorka Dramaturg and Performance Liaison, Stephens College.

"Despite occurring entirely within the confines of a single sparsely furnished set, like the famous courtroom drama “12 Angry Men,” the world of “The Anastasia Trials” seems far from limited. Rather than stretching itself across spatial dimensions, it probes the near-infinite depth of the human psyche. The audience can’t help but be swept up in the drama, which, brought to life by terrific acting, presents a window into the souls of the characters and the characters’ characters in all their manifold complexity."--The Commentator: Independent Student Newspaper Yeshiva University

"If we define our own identities, do we not define our own philosophies as well? Perhaps the play, in its overwhelming intersectionality and its refusal to favor one perspective over another, intends to leave the audience with this very message. The show is not here to tell you how to think, but to tell you that there are many different ways you can choose to. To spoon feed the audience with the approach that the playwright finds most enlightened would be to foist a philosophy, foist an identity, onto viewers—a direct contradiction of what the play itself stands for."--The Yeshiva University Observer

The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women makes theatre history with an interactive courtroom drama that engages the audience to serve as both judge and jury. The play is shaped by the audience decisions to overrule or sustain the attorneys’ motions, and every night’s audience sees a different play.

The Anastasia Trials is a farcical, but profoundly engaging excursion into the hidden world of ethics for women who are both survivors and perpetrators of abuse toward women. The format is a play-within-a-play, where a radical feminist theatre company comes together in order to perform a courtroom drama.

In presenting the play, the Emma Goldman Theatre Brigade has instituted a new system to insure equal opportunity for the actors: a lottery. As the women assemble to draw their roles from the hat for the evening’s performance, sisterhood is put to the test. The performance itself is a conspiracy trial against five women accused of denying a woman her identity. The plaintiff is none other than Anastasia Romanov, sole survivor of the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918. The audience is required to serve as judge and jury for the case, providing both rulings on the motions and the final verdict.

The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women requires intense audience participation, and the question of women betraying women is called for every member of the audience.

Nine women
Two hours
Single set (nine folding chairs)

Stephens College production

Online Reviews:

Theatre Unbound Production in Minneapolis

'The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women: An Interactive Comedy in Two Acts ' by Karla Mantilla, in off our backs,, May/June 2003.

'Theater Magic: The Trials and Tribulations of Producing Women's Theater' by Jade Angelica, in The Portland Phoenix,, Februrary 14 - 21, 2002.

'Women, Holding the Cards; 'The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women' by Dan Via, in The Washington Post,, May 30, 2003.

'Theater Review: The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women' by Robert Barry Francos in 'FFanzeen,' December 5, 2008.

Turning the Tables' by Martin Brady in Nashville Scene, September 2004.