Théâtre de la Mainate
Paris, France
Comedy-Drama/ 3 characters, 2 women, 1 man/ One Act
Synopsis: A young man – would-be writer – gets invited to the apartment of his “idol” Anna de Klar. Her personal life is as mysterious as the baroque stories she writes. The young man tries to seize – or steal, rather – the secrets of her creativity, and solve the mystery of who she really is.
“Singular, imaginative, very original.” – Aspects de la France
“A discovery, a world of its own, a gem. This show has real magic.” – France Culture
“Rossett has a startling sense of humor” – Humanité
Amateur and professional rights:
Alan Rossett
rossdoal@aol.com
Ph: (33) 1 73 75 57 65
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.
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 pageants (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.
Magic Lady was first produced by Théâtre de la Mainate, Paris, France in January, 1990.