DOROTHY PARKER: A CERTAIN WOMAN
A World Premiere
Researched and Compiled by James Rana
Performed by Suzanne Dawson (pictured above)
Dramaturg/Director and Set Design: Gayle Stahlhuth
Stage Manager: Tom Byrn
Production Assistant: Amanda Brinlee
New York Skyline created by Mark E. Lang
Costume Designed and Built by Marion T. Brady
September 15 – October 16
Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8:00 PM
Location: Cape May Presbyterian Church, 500 Hughes Street, Cape May, NJ
Tickets: $35; $30 senior; $20 student and military; ages 12 and under free
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
- just one of Dorothy Parker's bon mots
Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8:00 PM
Location: Cape May Presbyterian Church, 500 Hughes Street, Cape May, NJ
Tickets: $35; $30 senior; $20 student and military; ages 12 and under free
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
- just one of Dorothy Parker's bon mots
“A Telephone Call" is about a woman who waits anxiously for a man to call. She counts to five hundred by fives, seeks God's help, and wishes the man were dead, only to change her mind. "After all," she says, "it's silly to go wishing people were dead just because they don't call you up the minute they said they would. Maybe the clock's fast."
In 2011, Suzanne Dawson first performed this famous monologue in ELTC's world premiere The World of Dorothy Parker, created by Gayle Stahlhuth. For ELTC in 2021, Suzanne is performing her favorite Parker monologues, stories and poems, including "A Telephone Call."
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a poet, journalist, critic, screenwriter, human rights activist and a philanthropist. She was called a wit, a wise-cracker, and a nut. But above all, she was a Certain Woman. The first edition of The Portable Dorothy Parker was selected by Alexander Woollcott in 1944 as the fourth in a series of volumes intended for soldiers overseas. It has never been out of print.
Parker recently made the news when her gravestone was unveiled on August 23, 2021 in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. Due to the efforts of the Dorothy Parker Society, her ashes were moved from the NAACP headquarters in Baltimore, to the Bronx where she is now next to her parents and grandparents. On it, is the final stanza of her 1925 poem "Epitaph for a Darling Lady:" It reads: "Leave for her a red young rose. Go your way, and save your pity. She is happy, for she knows That her dust is very pretty."
In 2011, Suzanne Dawson first performed this famous monologue in ELTC's world premiere The World of Dorothy Parker, created by Gayle Stahlhuth. For ELTC in 2021, Suzanne is performing her favorite Parker monologues, stories and poems, including "A Telephone Call."
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a poet, journalist, critic, screenwriter, human rights activist and a philanthropist. She was called a wit, a wise-cracker, and a nut. But above all, she was a Certain Woman. The first edition of The Portable Dorothy Parker was selected by Alexander Woollcott in 1944 as the fourth in a series of volumes intended for soldiers overseas. It has never been out of print.
Parker recently made the news when her gravestone was unveiled on August 23, 2021 in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. Due to the efforts of the Dorothy Parker Society, her ashes were moved from the NAACP headquarters in Baltimore, to the Bronx where she is now next to her parents and grandparents. On it, is the final stanza of her 1925 poem "Epitaph for a Darling Lady:" It reads: "Leave for her a red young rose. Go your way, and save your pity. She is happy, for she knows That her dust is very pretty."
WHO'S WHO
Suzanne Dawson (Storyteller) has played leading roles off-Broadway in: CBS Live, The Last Musical Comedy, The Great American Backstage Musical, and the revival of New Faces of ’52. Her regional credits include Sylvia at Florida Studio Theatre, The Snowball and A Little Night Music at Buffalo Studio Arena, Carnival at The Alliance in Atlanta, and Rumors at Paper Mill Playhouse here in NJ. She toured with Rumors, and opposite Gavin Macleod in Last of the Red Hot Lovers. ELTC shows include: To the Ladies!, Alice on the Edge, The Butter and Egg Man, Berkeley Square, The World of Dorothy Parker, Dulcy, Ruth Draper’s Company of Characters, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Zorro!, and Arsenic and Old Lace. Member AEA.
James Rana (Researched and Compiled Dorothy Parker: A Certain Woman) East Lynne credits include: Nothing Matters, A Year in the Trenches (playwright), Dracula, Strictly Dishonorable, Huckleberry Finn (playwright), Zorro! (playwright/performer), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (playwright), The Poe Mysteries (playwright/performer), and Sherlock Holmes’ Adventure of the Norwood Builder. Ensemble Studio Theatre, Pan Asian Rep, Luna Stage, The Shakespeare Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Co. (UK), Classical Theatre of Harlem, Actors Shakespeare Co., Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Coney Island USA, Comedysportz, Worth Street Theatre, Shakespeare & Co., Princeton Rep, Globe Neuss and Bonn Biennale (Germany). Film/Television: Swim Little Fish Swim, The War Within, A Girl Like You With A Boy Like Me, The Assassin, Law & Order: SVU, Chicago Fire, Third Watch, One Life To Live, As the World Turns, Conan O’Brien. Radio: Poe: A Celebration (wrote and narrated) for NPR. Stage Adaptations: From The Earth To The Moon (workshop: Tri-State Actors Theatre), A Christmas Carol (Actors Shakespeare Co.). In 2017, he performed in Off-Broadway's The Government Inspector starring Michael Urie. In the fall of 2017, he began rehearsals for Broadway’s The Band's Visit, and performed several times in the role of the Band's Leader, originally performed by Tony Shalhoub, and other roles. When this Tony Award winning show closed on Broadway in April 2019, he began performing in The National Tour. James received his MFA from Trinity Rep and is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, SAG-AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild..
Gayle Stahlhuth (Dramaturg/Director) has performed off-Broadway (Manhattan Theatre Club, etc.) in national tours (Cabaret, Fiddler, etc.), regional theater (Gateway Playhouse in Long Island, etc.), television (various soaps, etc.), radio (jingles and Voice of America), and on the Chautauqua Circuit. Since becoming ELTC’s Artistic Director in 1999, she has produced over 100 different plays/musicals (some returned for another season), including 21 world premieres and 10 NJ premieres, and directed over half of them. Her adaptations for ELTC include Tales by Twain, that also ran at Surflight Theatre; Spoon River, based on the famous Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, and The Ransom of Red Chief based on O.Henry's classic tale. She’s been awarded commissions from The National Portrait Gallery, the Missouri and Illinois Humanities Councils, and grants from the NJ Humanities Council, the NYS Council on the Arts, and the Mid-Atlantic Foundation for the Arts. For several years she was a judge for the Emmy Awards in the field of broadcasting. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and the League of Professional Women, who honored her in 2016 for her work in theater.
Tom Byrn (Stage Manager) has performed with ELTC since 2009, including in two solo shows, Will Rogers U.S.A. (2018), and Mr. Lincoln, which was part of ELTC's 2015 and 2016 seasons and toured to Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in PA. Tom was also in ELTC’s Within the Law, He and She, Biography, The Dictator, and the world premiere of The Ransom of Red Chief. In 2018 and 2019, he directed Silent Sky and Summerland for ELTC. Tom has acted at various theaters in the Philadelphia area, including, People's Light & Theatre and the Delaware Theater Company, and at various other theaters in PA, NY, and OH. Currently an Associate Member, for eleven years, Tom was a full-time Ensemble Member of the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in Bloomsburg, PA. He is co-editor of the trade paperback Letters to the Editor (Simon & Schuster) and is a member of Actors' Equity and the Lincoln Center Director's Lab. He resides in the Susquehanna River Valley of central PA with his wife and daughter. To Lee....
Amanda Brinlee (Production Assistant) is a recent graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University and is thrilled to start her professional career with East Lynne Theater Company. She was recently seen in ELTC’s virtual production of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Something to Vote For as Mrs. Reedway and as Millie in Vaudeville Variety. Her favorite projects include working on Steel Magnolias as Truvy, Hay Fever as Jackie and Lia Romeo’s new play, The Agency as Ani. She would like to thank her family and friends for their support and ELTC for this opportunity.
Dorothy Rothschild Parker, the youngest of four siblings, was born on August 22, 1893 in West End, NJ, and was raised in a comfortable apartment, with servants, on West 72nd Street in Manhattan. Her father, Henry, a partner in a cloak-making firm, was of Prussian Jewish descent and her mother, Eliza, was an English Protestant. Eliza died when Dorothy was almost five. Henry quickly married Eleanor Lewis, who died when Dorothy was nine. Not happy with either the Catholic or Protestant schools she attended, Dorothy stopped going to school at age fourteen, and lived with her father until his death in 1913. He’d encountered financial reversals, so none of his children inherited much. Needing a job, Dorothy worked as a dance instructor, while she continued to write.
In 1915, her poem “Any Porch” was published by “Vanity Fair,” which led to a ten-dollar-a-week job writing captions at its sister publication, “Vogue.” Soon, her poems were published regularly in “Vogue,” “Vanity Fair,” and “Life.” She began reviewing Broadway shows for “Vanity Fair,” where she became friends with Robert Benchley and Robert Sherwood. Quickly perceived as a sharp wit in all of her writing whether the medium was short stories, poetry, or reviews, she held nothing back. In one of her classic Broadway reviews about Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy wrote, “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”
In June, 1917, Dorothy married Edward Pond Parker II, a handsome stockbroker. After he returned from France, having fought in World War I, his drinking problem was worse. By 1920, Dorothy and Eddie were living separate lives. They finally divorced in 1928.
Alexander Woollcott, who reported for “The New York Times,” returned from France where he had worked for the military newspaper, “Stars and Stripes.” In June 1919 to celebrate his return, thirty-five writers and publishers gathered for lunch at The Algonquin Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Those present included another former “Star and Stripes” staffer, Harold Ross. This was the beginning of the regularly scheduled luncheons for the group that formed The Algonquin Round Table aka the “Algonks.” Members included Benchley, Sherwood, Heywood Broun, Frank Adams, George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, and Dorothy.
In 1921, the Chicago newspaper reporter Charles MacArthur, who would later write “The Front Page” with Ben Hecht in 1928, moved to New York City. Soon after Charles and Dorothy met, an affair ensued, although both were married to others at the same time. When he put a stop to the affair, Dorothy made what would be her first of four suicide attempts. She slashed her wrists – but after she’d called a local restaurant to deliver her dinner. The deliveryman saved her life by rushing her to a hospital.
Meanwhile, she was getting published regularly in Frank Adam’s “Conning Tower” column in the “World,” and wrote a play with Elmer Rice, “Close Harmony,” that was produced on Broadway in 1924. It received excellent reviews, but opened around the same time as the Gershwins’ “Lady, Be Good” with Adele and Fred Astaire and Romberg’s “The Student Prince,” so it was overlooked by patrons.
When Harold Ross started publishing “The New Yorker” in 1925, Dorothy found another home for much of her work, and from 1927-1933, was the magazine’s book reviewer, using the byline “Constant Reader.”
Her first book, “Enough Rope,” released in December 1926, was a critical success. Two more collections of her verses followed: “Sunset Gun” in 1928 and “Death and Taxes” in 1931. “Big Blonde” first published in Seward Collins’s “Bookman” in February 1929, won the prestigious O. Henry competition for the best short story that year.
In 1934, Dorothy married Alan Campbell, an actor and a writer who was eleven years her junior. They moved to Hollywood to write screenplays for Paramount Pictures: Campbell receiving $250 a week, and Dorothy receiving a $1,000 a week – and this was during The Great Depression. They worked on such pictures as Hitchcock’s “Sabateur” and were nominated for two Academy Awards: “A Star is Born” in 1937 and “Little Foxes” in 1941.
A compilation of Dorothy’s poems appeared under the title “Not So Deep as a Well,” earning more than $30,000 in royalties between 1935 and 1937. The Campbells’ purchased Fox House, a colonial farmhouse with one-hundred acres, in Bucks County, PA. They paid less than $5,000 for it, and spent $8,000 on renovations. They moved between Hollywood and Bucks County until 1942, when Alan enlisted in the Air Force. In 1947, Alan and Dorothy divorced, and sold Fox House for $40,000. They remarried in 1950, but less than a year later, they separated, partially due to the political climate.
Dorothy had attacked the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the late 1940s, and was questioned by the FBI in 1951. She denied any ties to the Communist Party, but HUAC still cited her and three- hundred other writers, artists, actors, and professors for affiliating with Communist front organizations. Although Dorothy escaped official punishment, Hollywood producers informally blacklisted her through most the 1950s. Apparently this didn’t bother her because she seemed happy for an excuse to move back to New York.
She settled into the Volney Hotel on East 74th Street. With Arnaud d’Usseau, she wrote “Ladies of the Corridor,” that opened on Broadway in October 1953. The critic George Jean Nathan called it the best of the season, but it closed after six week. She began writing fiction again for “The New Yorker,” and for five years, wrote book reviews for “Esquire.”
In 1961, she reconciled with Alan, again, and they moved to Los Angeles, but heavy drinking continued for both of them and they existed mostly on unemployment insurance. On June 14, 1963, Alan died from an overdose of Seconal. Dorothy maintained it was accidental. Two months later, she turned 70, and moved back to the Volney in New York. She tried to control her alcoholism, but could not, and was in and out of hospitals. She did take speaking engagements, and there where friends like Wyatt Cooper and his wife Gloria Vanderbilt (Anderson Cooper’s parents), who held parties in her honor.
On June 7, 1967, Dorothy suffered a fatal coronary in her apartment. Her death was reported on the front page of “The New York Times.” Her body was cremated, and her ashes sat in her attorney’s office for 20 years.
Dorothy left her estate of a bit more than $40,000, and all rights to her work, to Dr. Martin Luther King. Upon the death of Dr. King, as per Dorothy’s wishes, the rights became the property of the NAACP. In 1988, the NAACP created a memorial garden for Dorothy in which her ashes now have a home. It is located outside the NAACP’s Baltimore headquarters. In 2020, the NAACP made plans to move its headquarters to Washington, D.C, and Dorothy is moving with them.
The first edition of “The Portable Dorothy Parker,” edited by Parker, appeared in 1944, and was selected by Alexander Woollcott as the fourth in a series of volumes intended for soldiers overseas. It has never been out of print.
In 1915, her poem “Any Porch” was published by “Vanity Fair,” which led to a ten-dollar-a-week job writing captions at its sister publication, “Vogue.” Soon, her poems were published regularly in “Vogue,” “Vanity Fair,” and “Life.” She began reviewing Broadway shows for “Vanity Fair,” where she became friends with Robert Benchley and Robert Sherwood. Quickly perceived as a sharp wit in all of her writing whether the medium was short stories, poetry, or reviews, she held nothing back. In one of her classic Broadway reviews about Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy wrote, “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”
In June, 1917, Dorothy married Edward Pond Parker II, a handsome stockbroker. After he returned from France, having fought in World War I, his drinking problem was worse. By 1920, Dorothy and Eddie were living separate lives. They finally divorced in 1928.
Alexander Woollcott, who reported for “The New York Times,” returned from France where he had worked for the military newspaper, “Stars and Stripes.” In June 1919 to celebrate his return, thirty-five writers and publishers gathered for lunch at The Algonquin Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Those present included another former “Star and Stripes” staffer, Harold Ross. This was the beginning of the regularly scheduled luncheons for the group that formed The Algonquin Round Table aka the “Algonks.” Members included Benchley, Sherwood, Heywood Broun, Frank Adams, George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber, and Dorothy.
In 1921, the Chicago newspaper reporter Charles MacArthur, who would later write “The Front Page” with Ben Hecht in 1928, moved to New York City. Soon after Charles and Dorothy met, an affair ensued, although both were married to others at the same time. When he put a stop to the affair, Dorothy made what would be her first of four suicide attempts. She slashed her wrists – but after she’d called a local restaurant to deliver her dinner. The deliveryman saved her life by rushing her to a hospital.
Meanwhile, she was getting published regularly in Frank Adam’s “Conning Tower” column in the “World,” and wrote a play with Elmer Rice, “Close Harmony,” that was produced on Broadway in 1924. It received excellent reviews, but opened around the same time as the Gershwins’ “Lady, Be Good” with Adele and Fred Astaire and Romberg’s “The Student Prince,” so it was overlooked by patrons.
When Harold Ross started publishing “The New Yorker” in 1925, Dorothy found another home for much of her work, and from 1927-1933, was the magazine’s book reviewer, using the byline “Constant Reader.”
Her first book, “Enough Rope,” released in December 1926, was a critical success. Two more collections of her verses followed: “Sunset Gun” in 1928 and “Death and Taxes” in 1931. “Big Blonde” first published in Seward Collins’s “Bookman” in February 1929, won the prestigious O. Henry competition for the best short story that year.
In 1934, Dorothy married Alan Campbell, an actor and a writer who was eleven years her junior. They moved to Hollywood to write screenplays for Paramount Pictures: Campbell receiving $250 a week, and Dorothy receiving a $1,000 a week – and this was during The Great Depression. They worked on such pictures as Hitchcock’s “Sabateur” and were nominated for two Academy Awards: “A Star is Born” in 1937 and “Little Foxes” in 1941.
A compilation of Dorothy’s poems appeared under the title “Not So Deep as a Well,” earning more than $30,000 in royalties between 1935 and 1937. The Campbells’ purchased Fox House, a colonial farmhouse with one-hundred acres, in Bucks County, PA. They paid less than $5,000 for it, and spent $8,000 on renovations. They moved between Hollywood and Bucks County until 1942, when Alan enlisted in the Air Force. In 1947, Alan and Dorothy divorced, and sold Fox House for $40,000. They remarried in 1950, but less than a year later, they separated, partially due to the political climate.
Dorothy had attacked the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the late 1940s, and was questioned by the FBI in 1951. She denied any ties to the Communist Party, but HUAC still cited her and three- hundred other writers, artists, actors, and professors for affiliating with Communist front organizations. Although Dorothy escaped official punishment, Hollywood producers informally blacklisted her through most the 1950s. Apparently this didn’t bother her because she seemed happy for an excuse to move back to New York.
She settled into the Volney Hotel on East 74th Street. With Arnaud d’Usseau, she wrote “Ladies of the Corridor,” that opened on Broadway in October 1953. The critic George Jean Nathan called it the best of the season, but it closed after six week. She began writing fiction again for “The New Yorker,” and for five years, wrote book reviews for “Esquire.”
In 1961, she reconciled with Alan, again, and they moved to Los Angeles, but heavy drinking continued for both of them and they existed mostly on unemployment insurance. On June 14, 1963, Alan died from an overdose of Seconal. Dorothy maintained it was accidental. Two months later, she turned 70, and moved back to the Volney in New York. She tried to control her alcoholism, but could not, and was in and out of hospitals. She did take speaking engagements, and there where friends like Wyatt Cooper and his wife Gloria Vanderbilt (Anderson Cooper’s parents), who held parties in her honor.
On June 7, 1967, Dorothy suffered a fatal coronary in her apartment. Her death was reported on the front page of “The New York Times.” Her body was cremated, and her ashes sat in her attorney’s office for 20 years.
Dorothy left her estate of a bit more than $40,000, and all rights to her work, to Dr. Martin Luther King. Upon the death of Dr. King, as per Dorothy’s wishes, the rights became the property of the NAACP. In 1988, the NAACP created a memorial garden for Dorothy in which her ashes now have a home. It is located outside the NAACP’s Baltimore headquarters. In 2020, the NAACP made plans to move its headquarters to Washington, D.C, and Dorothy is moving with them.
The first edition of “The Portable Dorothy Parker,” edited by Parker, appeared in 1944, and was selected by Alexander Woollcott as the fourth in a series of volumes intended for soldiers overseas. It has never been out of print.
