Crisp Theatre's Latest Project

Peg Woffington and Billie Holiday 

(Possible Title – The Immortals) 

A Tribute 

By Marion Reed

This is an original piece based on research into the life and times of this popular leading actress whose career spanned forty years of the eighteenth century; she partnered Garrick on stage and might have married him. Despite humble beginnings in Dublin she rose to prominence and led a full life as an independent woman – exceptional in those times; gossip implied that her success was due to promiscuity, rather than tenacity and hard work; alongside her story runs a parallel from more modern times: American Jazz singer Billie Holiday made her way in an era when few black women were allowed to achieve professional or social success. A theme of the play is that the struggle continues. We aim to find a composer who can do something amazing in combining music of the period with Jazz as a way of fusing the two stories.