Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Rediscovering Her Muse

A Liaison with Her Leading Lady by Lotte R. James

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Desperate to save her beloved father’s theatre, actress Ruth seeks out famed dramatist Artemis in an attempt to coax her out of her self-imposed exile from the English stage. This is a delightful and unusual historical romance, following as it does two women who live on the fringes of respectable society in Regency England. The author has worked in theatre herself, and her experience and understanding of stagecraft shines through during the whole story, aided by plenty of research into the changing theatre scene at […]

Feral and Ferocious: Two Plays About Girls

The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe

Dance Nation by Clare Barron

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The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe In the not-so-distant past, I performed frequently in small professional theatre productions. I’m a slightly-less-than 5’ tall woman, so I was often cast as teen and early-twenties characters, and I always had an eye out for plays that I could potentially pull monologues from for auditions. When The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, a play about a high school girls’ indoor soccer team, started making waves and eventually was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer, it seemed like it could be […]

“I expect you’ve heard of the Trojan War and how it was caused by Norma Jeane Baker, harlot of Troy”

Norma Jeane Baker of Troy by Anne Carson

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The past few vacations I’ve gone on, whenever the official tchotchke-hunting time comes up with the friends/family I’m traveling with, I’ve taken to seeking out the nearest local bookstore for my souvenir-hunting. I’ve found it to be a great alternative to buying something made of plastic that will collect dust and eventually get thrown away – instead, I purchase a book and write the bookstore name/location/date on the inside jacket, and whenever I pick up that book I can take a trip down memory lane […]

Window Dressing

To Marry and to Meddle by Martha Waters

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The English countryside in early September was a glorious place. The sun shone. The bees buzzed. The heady scent of wildflowers lingered in the air. Emily Turner could not think of a more romantic setting for the world’s least romantic marriage proposal. Julian needs a wife who makes him look respectable to remake his theatre’s reputation, Emily needs to get out from under her parents’ thumb and away from a skeevy suitor. Marriage sounds like the perfect solution – but being married is more complicated […]

Evolution of a Screwball Comedy

The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder

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I am continuing my dive through the plays that once belonged to my parents, former theatre nerds and aspiring stage actors, and the most interesting part is discovering that a lot of these plays (even ones I’ve never heard of) have been Broadway hits or even Hollywood Oscar winners (see: Butterflies are Free). The Matchmaker has a long and winding history in theatre and film- in 1938 it was published as a re-write of several earlier (1835, 1842, 1938) comedies, under the title “The Merchant […]

Strindberg mansplains it all

Miss Julie by August Strindberg

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In the last season of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the popular lowbrow comedienne Sophie Lennon, played by Jane Lynch, wants to prove her acting chops by starring in a theatre play of Miss Julie.  Despite rehearsal performances that are nuanced, in the actual performance Lennon plays Miss Julie as a variation on her lowbrow alter ego, to crushing reviews.  It turns out that this highbrow/lowbrow collision is one of the main themes of Miss Julie, so Lennon’s portrayal might actually have been a novel approach. […]



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