POSTPONED: Miss Lulu Bett

May 10 update: Due to COVID-19, the May 12-15 performances of the play Miss Lulu Bett have been indefinitely postponed. Ticket refunds can be obtained by contacting the Portage Center for the Arts box office at 608-742-5655.

media release: Miss Lulu Bett is a 1920 novel by American writer Zona Gale and was a bestseller at the time of its initial publication. Over the course of eight days, Zona Gale later adapted it into a play that premiered on Broadway at the Belmont Theater on December 27, 1920 and closed on June 18, 1921 after 198 performances.  The play won Gale the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the first by a woman. In the foreword to the script, Robert C. Benchley wrote: "Miss Gale has violated many sacred dramatic rules. She has given us characters who talk as people really talk and who therefore are dull... The result of such adherence to uninspiring reality might well have been expected to be a failure in its appeal to an uninspiring nation of theater-goers. But Miss Gale took the chance. She wrote the play, as she had written the book, without compromise, and was rewarded by an enthusiastic public."

Produced by the Portage Area Community Theatre group at the Portage Center for the Arts.

7 pm on 5/5-6 & 12-14 and 2 pm, 5/8 & 15. $15.