These Complicated Women

These Complicated Women considers the deeply conflicted, passionate, and fascinating lives of some famous and talented women from the last century: Hallie is about Hallie Flanagan, a true story of the ambitious Federal Theater Director during the WPA who was beset by personal tragedy, grilled by the House of Un American Activities Committee, and became the first female Guggenheim scholar. Modotti, again a tale inspired by true events, is the story of Tina Modotti, an Italian beauty who had emigrated to the U.S, then leaves for Mexico in the early 1920s to learn photography with her lover Edward Weston before becoming a Communist party leader alongside Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Soon she finds herself embroiled in the assassination investigation of another lover, and is arrested before being banished from the country. Our third story, Jackie, Maria and Lee, is about Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Maria Callas, and Lee Radziwill and is a fictional drama partly based on true events that takes place in heaven where the three deceased women confront one another about anger, hurt, and misunderstandings from their time on earth. This exchange is interrupted by Aristotle Onassis, who comes onto the scene from where he sits, stuck in Purgatory.

Directed by: Jordana Lawrence

Cast includes: Erika Leachman, Liz Gates, Philip Moreno, Bill Egan, Shay Monroe, Shari Howard, Kathleen Russell Hardin, Peter Rojas, and Heather Turbell/Wilson

Music by Paul McGarry

Claudia McGarry’s newest play revolves around women she has written about in her earlier plays — Jackie Onassis, Lee Radziwill, Maria Callas, Tina Modotti and Hallie Flanagan