Shelley Cooper's Amazing "Jenny Lind" is Coming for P.T. Barnum & She's Ready To Spill
Friday, June 28th, Los Angeles, CA
written by Entertainment Editor, Dan Ruth
We take the world of live performance and tours for granted sometimes in this sleek modern world of services such as StubHub, Ticketmaster, and the lot. With the world stung and drowsy from battling a pandemic, now nearly fully reawakened after the cancellations of 2020-22, we still had plenty of online options to get us through. Even some theatre festivals offered live streaming services; in short, we used our ingenuity to find a way to keep ourselves entertained. Now imagine turning back the clock one hundred seventy four years ago, eleven years before the start of the American Civil War; it’s then that the enormity of people such as Jenny Lind and P.T. Barnum come into clear focus. There were few tours of note crossing the United States, and what did manage to come through your town, most could hardly afford. Certainly one could call P.T. Barnum an entrepreneur, as he had opened “Barnum’s Grand Scientific Musical Theatre,” a venture that would eventually become his famed circus, which was practically the only thing going and it was affordable.
It could also be said that P.T. Barnum was the equivalent of Jeff Bezos and his behemoth Amazon, but instead of monopolizing items, services and exploiting the working poor, he exploited and monopolized entertainers. Jenny Lind was one such an entertainer; she was a world-renowned and highly popular opera singer that Barnum had lured to his touring circus, without even hearing her sing. Barnum may or may not have said the famous line, “there’s a sucker born every minute,” but I prefer Shelley Cooper’s line in her solo performance, Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum, “Mister Barnum, you are a man of many words, too many words.” You will hear none of those words in Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum, only Lind’s who, in a sentence, presents us with her exit interview before breaking her contract with Barnum to go off on her own and self-produce her own tour of America, the first woman to ever do so. Lind not only grew into a shrewd businesswoman, but a philanthropist as well. She has plenty to say to Barnum, only 55 minutes to say it and the show, now playing at The Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre as part of The Hollywood Fringe, needs to be seen and heard.
Shelley Copper’s joyous, controlled and passionate performance as a writer and performer is incredibly fine-tuned. Dressed very appropriately in a Victorian ball gown, she steps out onto a sparse set of a period chair and table, and she’s ready to spill. Cooper has more than done her research; you will learn a great deal about Jenny Lind, known then and now as the “Swedish Nightingale,” and you will leave the theatre with a new and possibly changed opinion about slave-owner Barnum, and his world of money and questionable moral standing. Then there’s Shelley Cooper the singer, who certainly knows her instrument, as she is an incredibly strong and gifted Soprano. One doesn’t have to work very hard to be transported into this mid-nineteenth century play, starring one of the world’s greatest singers, a star of the highest order and friend to John Howard Payne, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Hans Christian Anderson. Do not miss Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum. Lind wasn't a saint herself, but she could be considered, as Copper states, "charity and simplicity personified."
In closing, as I look at all of my notes, I don’t want to give any more of this highly detailed story away, and I suggest you experience Shelley Cooper’s play for yourself. Portions of the proceeds from this performance will be given to the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival, which encourages female writers to share their stories.
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