About
American playwright, actress, and activist best known for her experimental, feminist drama and her involvement with the Little Theatre Movement in Chicago. She is known for her work in Overtones, Alice in Wonderland and The Pot Boiler or The Dress Rehearsal.
Before Fame
She attended a private school in Chicago and later graduated from Bryn Mawr, a women's college in Pennsylvania, in 1907.
Trivia
In 2013, her play Overtones, was adapted into the chamber opera The Clever Artifice of Harriet and Margaret by composer-librettist Leanna Kirchoff. She used the innovative split subject in Overtones, a device that would later be used by Eugene O'Neill.
Family Life
She is the only child of Julia and Erich Gerstenberg. Her grandfather was a founder and member of the Chicago Board of Trade in 1848.
Associated With
She worked alongside playwrights Zoe Akins and Susan Glaspell.
