Mad or just angry – she’s certainly alone. Jazz icon Zelda Fitzgerald is locked up in a mental hospital and has just hours to live.
Award-winning actress Catherine D. DuBord and Texan director Lydia Mackay will premiere their new version of The Last Flapper by William Luce at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The play is set during the final hours of woman famed as a wild, fun-loving socialite, novelist, painter and playwright. She and her husband F Scott Fitzgerald, were simultaneously celebrated as icons and damned as enfants terriblesof the Jazz Age.
Playful, candid and poignant, The Last Flapper allows Zelda to speak for herself, rather than have others bend her story to their own purposes – as happened in her life and after her death. Based on her own letters and stories it asks the questions that others, including the medics who subjected her to inhumane treatments, did not:
- Did her husband steal her words?
- Did he claim she was insane just to gain his freedom?
- Can a woman ever decide her own fate?
While the play is historical, the issues it tackles are anything but history.
Playing Zelda in Luce’s one woman show fulfils a long-held ambition for DuBord, who lived yards from the Fitzgeralds’ former home in St. Paul, Minnesota.
She said: “I fell in love with the show when I was 16. I was born right around the corner from the Fitzgerald house, so when I found this play about her letters and writing, I was immediately sucked in.
“The show has undertones of a woman’s right to her own medical decisions. Zelda did not have that. She was trying to find her voice in a world that was not ready to hear from women.
“That was in the 1920s–1940s. Time has passed but progress has only been limited, indeed it can feel like we are sliding backwards. The echoes of the past are highly relevant today, which is why I decided on this project.”
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Notes for editors
Listings Details
- Venue: Greenside @ Riddles Court – Clover Studio (Venue 16)
- Time: 13:45
- Dates: August 7-12, 14-19. Previews August 4-6.
- Duration: 50 min
- Ticket prices: £6 to £8 preview. Full price £13, concessions £10
- Advisory: Age 14+ guideline
- Warnings: Strong language/swearing
- Tickets: https://tickets.edfringe.com
Cast and creatives
- Company: Belle Sauvage
- Written by: William Luce
- Adapted and performed by: Catherine DuBord
- Director: Lydia Mackay
About Belle Sauvage
Belle Sauvage was created in 2023 by Catherine D. DuBord to bring new and existing work championing women’s voices to the stage in Dallas and beyond. The Last Flapper will be the company’s inaugural production.
About Catherine DuBord
Catherine DuBord is a classically trained actress holding a BFA in Theatre from Southern Methodist University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. Upon graduation, Catherine hit the ground running and hasn’t slowed down. Her wide range of talents makes it hard to put her in any one box. No stranger to the stage, Catherine has worked extensively in 50+ productions in a wide array of challenging roles at virtually every major theater in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, earning her numerous acting awards and nominations. Some of her favourite highlights include: Noises Off, The Farnsworth Invention, Susan and God, and Popcorn (Theatre Three), Steel Magnolias, Catholic School Girls, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, LuAnn Hampton Laverty Oberlander and Sylvia (Contemporary Theatre of Dallas), In the Next Room, or the vibrator play and Pillowman (Kitchen Dog), Romance in D and Finishing School (One Thirty Productions), Don’t Dress for Dinner and Holmes and Watson(Stage West) Matt and Ben (Echo), Some Girl(s) (Second Thought) and This Random World (Circle Theatre). She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity and is represented by The Mary Collins Agency in Dallas.
About Lydia Mackay
Lydia Mackay is proud to call Dallas/Fort Worth her home, personally and artistically. She holds a BFA in Theatre from Texas Wesleyan University and an MFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University. She is also a Registered Yoga Teacher, a proud member of the SAFD, AEA, and ATME, and is represented by The Mary Collins Agency. Lydia is currently an Assistant Professor of Performance at Texas Christian University, and continues to work professionally as a stage and voice actor. At Theatre TCU, she recently directed Babette’s Feast and designed the fight choreography for Othello, and this fall will direct Dawn King’s play The Trials.
Website www.bellesauvage.us
Instagram www.instagram.com/thelastflapper/
Facebook www.facebook.com/Thelastflapper
For media information contact Matthew Shelley at SFPR on 07786 704299 or at [email protected].