Complicated Women

by Jason Grant

Women helping women. Women hurting women. Hope, Constance, Vanessa, and Duane are women from different generations and backgrounds. No matter the location—specialty dress shop or trendy New York restaurant—they clash over ambitions, body imagery, spousal abuse, alcohol, children, and sex.

Act I. The Cinderella Dress. Constance is a late 30’s/early 40’s high-powered executive. She arrives at “The Shop of Last...

Women helping women. Women hurting women. Hope, Constance, Vanessa, and Duane are women from different generations and backgrounds. No matter the location—specialty dress shop or trendy New York restaurant—they clash over ambitions, body imagery, spousal abuse, alcohol, children, and sex.

Act I. The Cinderella Dress. Constance is a late 30’s/early 40’s high-powered executive. She arrives at “The Shop of Last Resort,” her final stop in an afternoon spent searching for a dress. Not just a dress. A Cinderella dress that will help her catch her elusive Prince Charming. Hope is middle 20’s, recent Princeton graduate, psychology major. She is an enthusiastic as well as challenging saleswoman.

Act II. Society’s Darling. Vanessa, mid 20’s, bride of a New York philanthropist, has a lunch date arranged by her husband with Duane Parrish, late 30’s, Society’s Darling. She has been asked to guide Vanessa through the ins and outs of New York’s social life and charity sponsorship. It’s a luncheon fueled by drink and drugs.

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Complicated Women

Hope: Mid/late 20’s, avant garde dresser, think lower East Side. She wears a spiky multi-colored wig, a persona she adopts of a know-it-all, worldly-wise woman. Bubbly. Enthusiastic. She’s informal when she speaks, except when she removes the wig. Then, she is precise.

Constance: Mid/Late 30’s-Early 40’s. High Powered business executive. Chic, conservative, woman’s business suit. She is desperate to find “the dress,” which will help her land the divorced man she is dating.

Marco: A suave Italian restaurant Maitre’d/manager. Mid 40’s - early 50's. Speaks English with a hint of accent. At times, he uses Italian or French words to charm his clients. Smooth as silk. He knows how to keep his restaurant running smoothly.

Vanessa: A good-looking, 25-30 year old, associate editor at a fashion magazine. She is organized, efficient, and on the cool side. She appears controlled, but beneath the surface, she harbors strong emotions. She looks like she could be, but is not, a junior matron. She wears the latest designer business suit. Her jewelry is real, discreet, and reflects taste.

Can double for HOPE

Duane: A beautiful woman, somewhere between 36 and 45. She is elegant, tall or gives the illusion that she is, light-haired, and richly dressed. She is painfully shy which she covers with alcohol and pills. A victim of spousal abuse stokes her anger towards her husband. Tends to roar on some words.

She can double for CONSTANCE



Production History

  • Workshop, HB Studios, 2001
  • Workshop, TSI, 1999