Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Bookends - A New Musical about Old Friends

I just discovered those two old and dear friends, Rostenberg and Stern this year. They were 2 Jewish women who refused to do what tradition said - which was to get married and raise a family, and leave the menfolk to do the business. Instead they got together and started their own Rare Books Business and ran it for over 50 years. They produced dozens of catalogues, and also did a large amount of Bibliophilic scholarly research.

Madeleine Stern discovered Louisa May Alcott's pseudonym under which she (Alcott) wrote a number of "racy" novels, that were totally different from the Little Women & Little Men series. Stern died earlier this year. Leona Rostenberg wrote a few books about the history of printing in Europe. She died in 2005.

I also heard something about a musical based on their lives. Well I finally found some information about the Musical. It was produced and performed by the New Jersey Repertory Company. it's called BOOKENDS and it received some good reviews.

I wonder if this musical will ever come to Canada. Maybe I might suggest it to the local theatre company. Because I for one would LOVE to see it.

1 comment:

Carrie K said...

Me too! I wonder if it'll come my way? SF/Berkeley seems like it would have a shot.