The Anastasia Trials In The Court Of Women
by Carolyn Gage, Don Nigro

A play with intense audience participation!

Engrossing controversial courtroom drama where the audience must serve as judge and jury deciding motions and verdict in a case against the five women who betrayed the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov the last surviving daughter of the Tsar of Russia.

Complex ethical questions on a set of folding chairs.

The Anastasia Trials is a farcical but profoundly engaging excursion into the hidden world of ethics for women who are both survivors and perpetrators of abuse toward women.

The format is a play-within-a-play where a radical feminist theatre company comes together in order to perform a courtroom drama.

The play is shaped by the audience decisions to overrule or sustain the attorneys' motions and every night's audience sees a different play.

In presenting the play the Emma Goldman Theatre Brigade has instituted a new system to insure equal opportunity for the actors: a lottery.

As the women assemble to draw their roles from the hat for the evening's performance sisterhood is put to the test.

The performance itself is a conspiracy trial against five women accused of denying a woman her identity.

The plaintiff is none other than Anastasia Romanov sole survivor of the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918.

ÿþ"Elegantly conceived...A feminist Noises Off

."

- Washington City Press

"Powerful."

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San Diego Lesbian Press

"Farce social history debate play agitprop audience participation melodrama satire [that] makes the head reel!" -

San Diego Union Tribune

"Wild...

It's lively and moves quickly...

Very funny yet poignant."

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Washington Blade

"Carolyn Gage's raucous multilayered script explores issues of empathy loyalty and betrayal among women..." --The Washington Post.

"Verdict: An unexpected delight...

" --Miami Herald FL.

"... farcical humor imaginative plot twists and just pure theatrical fun..." --South Florida Sun-Sentinel Ft.

Lauderdale.

"... fascinating and complex play..."--Fresno Beehive.com

"I am constantly amazed at Carolyn's ability to make complex social issues not only accessible but also irresistibly fascinating... the play... [The Anastasia Trials ] touched us made us laugh and gripped us in a white-knuckle intensity usually found only in Hitchcock films."

--R.J.

McComish Literary Manager of the Portland Stage Company Portland Maine.

"... fabulously interesting brilliantly thought-provoking and exquisitely funny... masterpiece of feminist theater..." --off our backs Washington DC.

"Each performance could potentially have a different result and many students saw every performance just so they could see how the show ended."--At Oldfields Glencoe MD.