Fest Fast Facts

• Alice Bliss is based on the novel by Laura Harrington, but our protagonist Alice has had many lives – first as a character cut from Jenny and Laura’s musical Crossing Brooklyn, then as the subject of their one-woman musical Alice Unwrapped.
• One of the early inspirations for writing this musical was an interview with Michelle Obama, in which she made a call to action to filmmakers and playwrights to shine a spotlight on the stories of military families.
• In the novel, Alice’s brainy kid sister Ellie is obsessed with big words. In the musical, Ellie’s just as brainy and obsessed…with the Civil War. Her random factoids about Tecumsah Sherman and the Virginia Campaign bounce off our broader story of women taking the heat of war.
• A trio of women serves as a chorus and plays members of the community touched by war in different ways – a neighbor who’s the mother of a soldier, an immigrant baker who arrived as a refugee, and a wounded warrior who coaches the high school track team.
• We’re looking for a theater at which to have our world premiere. Our dream is to produce the show in a community that includes military families, who might see themselves in the story of Alice Bliss.