Metropolitan Playhouse
presents
The Virtual Playhouse
A Screened Reading
of
REPRESENTING T. A. BUCK
Written by EDNA FERBER
Read by MICHELE LaRUE
Talkback following with JULIE GILBERT, Pulitzer
Prize nominee & great-niece of Edna Ferber
October 17, 2020 8 p.m.
www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse
Meet
Emma McChesney, the brilliant creation of a brilliant author. It’s 1913, and
Emma is a woman in a man’s world. She’s a traveling salesperson. And she is
good. Very good. Her annual income in today’s dollars would be $84,000. She’s
been on the road for nine years. Train after train, hotel after hotel. Yet in
her moments alone, she visualizes a homey kitchen where she bakes cookies. Why
these feelings? She could buy a little house and make her domestic dreams come
true. But she doesn’t.
Wandering downstairs to have dinner, she passes
armchairs filled with businessmen, the air filled with cigar smoke. She hears
the hint of a piano being played. Beautifully played classical music. Emma finds
the salon, sees the lone pianist. She sits quietly in a corner, immersed in the
magic. Their eyes meet. Edna Ferber will tell you the rest.
METROPOLITAN
PLAYHOUSE has stepped outside the box with this production. It is simply
MICHELE LaRUE reading the story aloud. But there’s nothing simple about it. It
is a deluxe performance that captures every nuance of Ferber’s tale. Yummy,
thought-provoking, entertaining to the max. A real treat.
-Karen D’Onofrio-