Bette Davis Ain't For Sissies

Jessica Sherr

It’s the 1939 Academy Awards, Bette Davis is nominated for Best Actress, but the LA Times leak the winners early. DAVIS LOSES? A fuming Bette storms out of the Oscars! Fasten your seat belts & come along for this bumpy ride as you watch Bette’s most defining moments as this tenacious star fights her way to the top!

Hollywood icon Bette Davis broke the glass ceiling for women in the entertainment industry. Trapped by the movie studios who owned her, Bette wrestled with movie moguls, and fought against their unfair system of low pay and meager roles. See Bette triumph over the studio heads’ misogyny to win starring roles and compensation on par with her male counterparts. Her story inspires and empowers audiences to fight for fair and equitable treatment, and to never let themselves be defined by someone else’s expectations!

Award-Winning Actress and playwright, Jessica Sherr, powerfully channels Bette Davis in her fight against the male-dominated studio system. On the night of the 1939 Oscars, Bette returns home knowing she’s to lose Best Actress to Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara, because the press has leaked the winners. Miss Davis takes us on the bumpy ride of her tumultuous rise, as this tenacious actress fights her way up the studio system to reach the top of her profession.

Through conversations with her mother Ruthie, scenes of her friendship with Olivia De Havilland, her love affairs with revered film director William Wyler and eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes, her dysfunctional relationship with her daughter, her four failed marriages, her groundbreaking court case with Warner Brothers (which she lost), and being subject to ageism in Hollywood, we experience Bette’s most defining and most vulnerable moments: her courageous battle against sexism and inequity.

Bette Davis Ain't For Sissies, directed by Drama Desk Award Winning Karen Carpenter, gives audiences a humanizing experience into the mind of a global icon whose voice could not remain silent. Her battles and victories were generations ago, but her story is an inspiration for today, empowering audiences to stand up and fight for what they believe in. Forever!

Approx Running Time: 70 Minutes
Genre: Solo Play, Theatrical, Tribute

Please Note: the venue has a 2-beverage minimum per person.

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