BELLA ABZUG
That Beautiful, Ballsy Broad Who Gave ‘Em Hell!
A solo play by Amy Simon being developed in Theatre West’s writer's workshop.
Staged Reading of a new play being developed at Theatre West
Sunday, March 17, 2024 at 2:00pm — Talk Back after the show
tickets: $15 DONATION
A peek into the fascinating, entertaining, far-reaching life of brilliant, hat-wearing, ferociously driven, pugnacious Congresswoman Battling Bella Abzug, whose personality was as big as her mouth.
Synopsis:
From a hardworking, New York middle-class Jewish family, to the United States Congress, watch Bella in her own words “kick the hell out of the establishment”.
Lovingly and painstakingly researched, Bella is brought to life with most of the dialogue coming from books and biographies, interviews, and Bella’s own writings and speeches.
As a young woman, she is defiant, rebellious, and determined to break out of her era’s gender-chains and follow her own path to become a lawyer. From defending actors accused of communism or putting her life in danger defending a wrongly convicted black man in 1950s Mississippi, there is nothing she won’t do or anyone she won’t fight for justice. She was a formidable opponent. Once in Congress, despite being surrounded by “schlemiels”, she fought like hell for the Equal Rights Amendment, childcare, gay rights, the environment, and against racism, ageism, corruption, and more and God help anyone who gets in her way. Whether harassing her staff or demanding President Nixon’s resignation, we watch her refuse to accept the status quo and tirelessly and exhaustingly wear everyone down with her chutzpah.
Bio
Amy Simon has been acting and writing since childhood and producing theater for most of her adult life. After ten years of performing plays, sketch, and improv comedy in New York theaters and comedy clubs, including the famed Palace Theater, The Duplex, Folk City, and Manhattan Punch Line, Amy moved west. Her first play, Cheerios In My Underwear (And Other True Tales Of Motherhood), held the record as the longest-running solo play in Los Angeles. It was broken by SHE’S HISTORY! her solo play about women who make and made history, which debuted in 2010 at The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and has been performed around the country. She is currently writing a Young Adult Women’s History book for Rowman & Littlefield.
Amy is a member of SAG-AFTRA, The Dramatists Guild, Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative (LAFPI), Association of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP), and, at Theatre West, where she has been developing SHE IS HISTORY!, a full cast, all-female version of the solo play. She has had several very well-received staged readings. Amy has been working for many years on her solo play about the late great New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug. Her women’s history work is inspired by her daughters because we know more about Kim Kardashian than Abigail Adams, and that is just not right.
Playwrights Notes
I fell in love with Bella Abzug while working on SHE’S HISTORY! My play is about a struggling divorced mom who gets inspiration from women who make and made history. Like me, Bella was a New York Jewish mother of two girls. But when I started researching ALL that this loudmouthed, hat-wearing “pain in the neck” did, I became outraged that we don’t know more about her. When I got my first credit card, I had no idea it was Bella who made that - and so much more - possible. She was a force to be reckoned with. Funny, vain, beautiful, and a demanding workaholic with whom no one could keep up. Yet in many ways, a woman like so many, who struggles with their looks, weight, and guilt about being a working mom. Madly in love with her wonderful husband Martin, a true partner who made her life as a lawyer, activist, and mother possible. Their love story is so beautiful, unique, and compelling as there were and are very few Martins who as Bella wrote, were secure enough not to be threatened by her. Her trailblazing paved the way for so many and her accomplishments made life better for all of us.