Newspapers painted Evelyn Nesbit as Stanford White’s victim and Harry Thaw’s seductress, but “Mam’zelle Champagne” reinterprets her character as a queer showgirl in love who didn’t care for either of these flamboyant men. In this monologue play, Evelyn, covered in blood from the infamous shooting, proposes running away with Viola, who’s still on stage singing.
Based on a notorious moment in American journalism, “Mam’zelle Champagne" picks up moments after the famous murder of White by Thaw. The sensational story wedged Nesbit into a much-speculated-about love triangle. No historical evidence suggests Nesbit was queer, but given the persistent invisibility of femme bisexuality in 1906 and today, we have no reason to think she wasn’t.
I developed “Mam’zelle Champagne” for 365 Women’s 2020 list of plays about extraordinary women in both past and present history. Find it under Evelyn’s name in their exhaustive directory. Read it and my other plays on my New Play Exchange profile page.