Patience Worth  

Join us for a STAGED READING

of for/word's newest script.

 

January 16, 2014 at 8:00pm

Riffe Center Studio 2 Theatre
Columbus, OH

 

Directed by:

Christina Ritter

Produced by:

 Available Light Theatre

 

Featuring: Emily Bach, Mandy Fox, Kevin McClatchy, Christopher Marlowe Roche

 

Stay for a talkback with Christina and Jen, joint artistic directors, about the play and its next phase of development.

Pearl Curran was a housewife in early twentieth century St Louis. She was also the operator of a Ouija board through which Patience Worth, an author from the beyond, was purported to speak. Over the course of two decades, a remarkably prolific Patience (via Pearl) dictated millions of words in books, poems, and plays. And she regaled curious visitors, believers and nonbelievers alike, with cryptic and charming bon mots.

 

Plumbing the rich archival holdings of the Missouri Historical Society, this piece explores fragmented identity, sublimated love affairs, the desire for fame, and the limits of credulity. 

 

For more information on Pearl Curran, read Gioia Diliberto’s Smithsonian Magazine article.

 

Production History

Staged reading. Tristan Bates Theatre (London, UK). August 2013.