‘They’re like Burns and Allen, except that she’s George and he’s Gracie.' A new two-character play inspired by Calvin Trillin’s memoir of the same title
Alice Trillin, a gifted author, educator, film producer, activist on behalf of cancer patients, and muse to her husband, humorist Calvin Trillin, died September 11, 2001, age 63, from complications due to lung cancer.
From condolence letters he received, Trillin felt readers didn’t know Alice beyond a “sort of an admirable sitcom character” that he created in his books and magazine pieces.
Four years after her death, New Yorker editor David Remnick suggested that Trillin consider writing about Alice. In 2006, New Yorker published Trillin’s essay “Alice, Off the Page: Expanding on–or maybe correcting–some of the things I wrote about my wife.”
The 2007 memoir About Alice developed from the shorter New Yorker essay.
World Premiere
