

Women Of Manhattan
John Patrick Shanley
THE STORY: A new adaptation of Rona Jaffe's 1958 bestseller about ambitious secretaries in the big city.
These girls want thrilling careers and gay adventures--and husbands and children too, in due time.
Today we call that having it all; these gir
"A respectful, hysteria-free, streamlined and appealingly modest effort that lets Jaffe’s working girls speak for themselves. What they have to say isn’t, in some ways, all that different from what the women of Sex and the City and even Lena Dunham’s Girls would be saying decades later."
— The New York Times
"Brilliantly funny... A satirical statement on the world then contrasted with the world now... Feels light and bubbly like a champagne toast to the ’50s, but then the drama drops... While we smile at the old vintage songs and attitudes of a bygone era, we suddenly realize women today are facing the exact same struggles nearly a century later... A fun evening that will make you think."
— BroadwayWorld
"To my surprised pleasure, The Best of Everything is neither a delirious sendup nor a mordant, finger-wagging deconstruction. It’s a respectful, hysteria-free, streamlined and appealingly modest effort that lets Jaffe’s working girls speak for themselves… The whole show is refreshingly free of the ‘aren’t-we-clever’ self-consciousness that often accompanies such excursions into pop-culture past… There is a welcome humility at work here, which in turn creates a feeling of unvarnished transparency. This approach gently and divertingly reminds us that Jaffe’s novel focused a clear and abidingly useful gaze on women caught in a moment in time that isn’t as distant as you might suppose."
— The New York Times
"It’s Stage Door in a Mad Men world, with a jigger of Peyton Place, and Kramer treats its soapiness like a bubble bath whose froth conceals some pretty dirty water."
— Time Out New York
"This clever adaptation of Rona Jaffe’s novel about secretaries in the 1950s is an absolute treat… The Best of Everything nimbly lives up to its title."
— TheaterMania
| Character |
|---|
| Brenda Zaleski 20s. A schemer with slight Queens accent. |
| Mary Agnes Russo 20s. Naïve and gossipy but in a funny rather than mean-spirited way. |
| April Morrison Early 20s. Beautiful small-town girl. Says funny things without knowing they’re funny. Catnip to men (and doesn’t really know that either). |
| Amanda Farrow Mid-to-late 30s. Smart, put-together and intimidating. Unmarried at 36, she’s the only female editor at Fabian Publishing and determined to keep it that way. |
| Gregg Adams Early 20s. An actress and a temp. She has the face of a 16-year-old and the sophistication of a 40-year-old. Not as devil-may-care as she seems. |
| Eddie Harris Early 20s. Caroline’s ex-fiancé. Harvard man. Sees himself as the hero of a romantic novel. One additional actor plays all of the following roles: |
| Mike Rice 40s. Handsome but dissipated. An alcoholic and a cynic but a good man. |
| David Wilder Savage 30s. Dashing, smart, the devil. Makes every woman feel like the only girl in the world. |
| Mr. Shalimar 60s. The editor-in-chief of Fabian Publishing. Sophisticated, with a possibly affected British accent and lots of impressive stories. A drinker and garter snapper of the worst order. |
| Ronnie Wood 20s. Small-town boy, handsome, sweet, a slight stutter. |
| Caroline Bender Early 20s. Pretty and very smart with a broken heart beneath her polished exterior. |
The Best of Everything – About the Show, Main Street Theater Houston
The Best Of Everything is a American adaptation play written by Julie Kramer and published by Dramatists Play Service in New York (2013).
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