The Triumph of Eros: Plague-Ridden 19th-Century Venice

Charles Higham, best-selling biographer, historian, and playwright, has written on the lives of historic notables from Abraham Lincoln (coming next February) and the Dutchess of Windsor, to Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis. His Howard Hughes: The Secret Life, soon to be republished, is the basis for the upcoming Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio film The Aviator. A long-time feature writer and contributor to The New York Times, The Kenyon and Hudson Reviews, he has also had a successful career in the theatre. Produced in both California and New York, he brings his work to The Theatre-Studio, Inc. for the second time with his newest play, The Triumph of Eros.

To avoid public humiliation and scrutiny, two of nineteenth-century France’s most famous lovers and literary figures, George Sand and Alfred deMusset, escape to Venice.

Though a typhus epidemic rages there in Venice, Alfred’s libertine proclivities undermine his relationship with George Sand and threaten her need to meet her publisher’s deadlines.

George Sand advocated free love, equal opportunity for women, and an independent lifestyle. All her relationships with men deteriorated, including with Frederic Chopin. She was politically active, and produced a prodigious literary output, including some eighty novels.

Appropriate for audiences 12 and up.