About the Project
Betsy Ross LIES!
by Ed Valentine
Play history:
Reading: New Circle Theatre Company, New York: 2018
Staged reading, Los Angeles CA: 2010
Winner, KCACTF Festival Region II: 2007
Staged reading, KCACTFestival, New Paltz NY: 2007
Synopsis:
“Red for the streams of blood, white for the pale of face,
that pale pale face that let the blood flow.
Blue for the brains all broke and battered -
Stars ‘cause you see them when your life gets shattered!
Stars bars and stripes – that’s that that mattered.
There’s them that mattered.”
A romp through American history – and a timely comment on Presidential truthfulness – this jazz-verse play posits that the first “Stars ‘n’ Stripes” was made… NOT by Betsy Ross, but by Pumpkin Pye, a 16-year-old with a strange affliction and a blazingly original creative spark.
Pumpkin Pye works in the Widow Ross’s upholstery shop – until the day the steely Betsy (sort of an ur-Martha Stewart) tricks General George Washington into believing the flag to be Betsy’s own creation.
Standing by the Cherry Tree of Truth on the public square, Washington has to choose between messy creativity and cold – if pretty – marketing in a climactic sewing-bee.
Production Team
