Books by Kevin Lane Dearinger

A reflection on one of Broadway's most iconic flops, this memoir follows a musical that featured one of the silver screen's most powerful personalities. Bette Davis was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and twice won the Best Actress award, starring in classics like Jezebel, The Letter, The Little Foxes, All About Eve and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, among many more. In 1974, the living legend agreed to star in Miss Moffat, a musical adaptation of Emlyn Williams' The Corn in Green. Expectations were high, but Miss Moffat opened and then abruptly closed, leading theatre gossips to speculate on what went wrong. Early in his career, Kevin Lane Dearinger, a young actor who had recently relocated to New York, landed a minor role in Miss Moffat. Inexperienced and unsure of himself, he kept a journal of his observations and experiences throughout production. He observed the older and more seasoned Miss Davis, who seemed determined to remain clear-headed despite the unfolding calamity. In this book, Dearinger revisits his journal to reflect on his own life, a fated stage production, his experience with an entertainment legend and a bygone era of Broadway.

Clyde Fitch (1865-1909) was the most successful and prolific dramatist of his time, producing nearly sixty plays in a twenty-year career. He wrote witty comedies, chaotic farces, homespun dramas, star vehicles, historical works, stark melodramas, and adaptations of European successes, but he was best known for his society plays, mirroring themes found in the novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton. In fact, Fitch collaborated with Wharton on a stage adaptation of her House ofMirth. He was also a gay man, although that gentler adjective was not the term of his time. He was bullied in school and baited by critics throughout his career for what they supposed of his private life. He responded with impressive strength and integrity. He was, at least for a short time, Oscar Wilde's lover, and Wilde influenced his early plays, but Fitch's study of Ibsen and other European dramatists inspired him to pursue the course of naturalism. As he became more successful, he took greater control of the staging and design of his plays. He was a complete man of the theatre and among the first names enrolled in New York's theatrical hall of fame.