Rag Doll on a Bomb Site

Book, music and lyrics by Shelley Cooper.Directed and developed by Kelsey Miller. Produced and developed by Jessica Lynn Johnson, Soaring Solo Studios, in special collaboration with the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.. Starring Shelley Cooper. The show is based on an actual incident in Lenya’s career. It’s 1928, and the premiere of a sold-out house for The Threepenny Opera. Lenya is cast in the role of Jenny Diver and is set to sing the opening number, Mack the Knife. Somehow, Lenya’s name has been omitted from the playbill. Her husband, the composer Kurt Weill bursts into her dressing room, demanding that the performance be canceled. No one can insult his wife in this fashion.

Lenya tries to calm her husband down. Performing Jenny Diver, a character with whom she identifies on a number of levels, is far more important to her than avenging the oversight of her omitted name on a playbill. Before her marriage to Weill, hers was a hard-knock life on the gritty, poor side of Vienna. She grew up in a slum, beaten repeatedly by a cruel father, endured hunger and crushing poverty, rape, and repeatedly found herself in morally compromising positions as she struggled to survive and advance herself.

She’s come so far, and now that she has her dream role, Kurt must allow her to go on stage and sing. But will he?