Comedy-Drama/ 1 Character, played by 2 Women/ Full Length, 80 minutes
Synopsis:
Who hasn’t dreamed of looking in a mirror and seeing the person one once was . . . or the one who’s waiting ahead.
Two actresses, one young, one old, trace the journey of Olivia, from her conventional beginnings in the French provinces, through her tumultous collisions with the art world . . . her first affair with a macho cubist . . . her marriage to a portraitist specialising in beautiful women . . . the Paradise that turns into Hell for both of them.
Adorable? Deplorable? Scheming? Generous? At the age of 70, she’s lost nothing of her cutting edge. On a live TV show, she reveals all her truths, all her secrets . . . and those of everybody else!
“A very moving evening in the theatre, a must-see.”
– Théâtreauteur“Light, funny and utterly charming . . . the essence of Alan Rossett.”
– FR 3“A lovely comedy . . . The author humorously traces two faces of the same woman to which two actresses lend moving reflections.”
– Dumas Theatre“Tenderly but sardonically the author gets to the roots of one woman’s destiny, from the 1950’s to the present.”
– Direct Matin“A gripping play bristling with truth.”
– Théâtre contemoprain.tv
Contact information:
Amateur and professional rights:
Alan Rossett
91, rue Nollet
75017 Paris
France
Ph.: O1 7375 57 65
E-mail: rossdoal@aol.com
About the Playwright: “Cocteau meets Woody Allen” was film-director Jean Delannoy’s comment on Alan Rossett, the only American to have French language plays produced regularly in France . . . and to receive awards from the Centre National des Lettres. Born in Detroit, he began his career as an actor in New York, where he appeared for a season with the Living Theatre and also as James Earl Jones’ first Iago. Relocating in Paris, he wrote and directed an evocation of Montmartre Light and Shade with Charles Boyer. Then his comedy High Time went from London to Sydney to New York (at the Actors Studio) and wound up, translated, in a Parisian cafe theatre before transferring to La Bruyere, a Broadway category house.
Rossett made the language cross-over into French with two plays set in restaurants which he staged in the midst of diners at a show biz hang-out, running 200 performances. Many other productions followed of his French-language plays, including How It Happened, Cat As Cat Can, Love On Ice, Calamity Jane. Au Pair Girls premiered in Paris and was revived successfully at the Avignon Festival where it was nominated for a PIAF as comedy of the year.
His French plays are published by Avant-Scene Theatre, Editions des quatre-vents, Editions Art et Comedie et Librairie Theatrale. He has adapted into English many of his own works as well as a series of plays by colleagues that have received grants from the Beaumarchais Association of the French Author’s Society. Rossett has done English versions as well of Alain Decaux’s historical pagaents (Chateau Blois Comes To Life and De Gaulle: the Man Who Said NO. As an actor, he has appeared in films of Marcel Carné, Woody Allen, and over 50 others.
Girl at her Mirror was first produced at the Comédie Nation, Paris, France in 2009, prior to an extensive tour.