‘Stunt Girl’ comes to life on Issaquah stage

Issaquah residents hungry for a bit of history can get their fill for the next month at Village Theatre.

“Stunt Girl,” a musical chronicling the life of turn-of-the-century investigative journalist Nellie Bly, opened last night on the Village Theatre Mainstage.

Tony-nominated Peter Kellogg, who wrote the book and lyrics for the play, and David Friedman, who wrote the music, spent nearly 10 years putting “Stunt Girl” together — at the suggestion of Kellogg’s wife. Neither had heard of Nellie Bly before.

“After doing research on her, it was interesting to see that she was once the most famous person in the world, and now most people don’t know who she is today,” Kellogg said.

Born Elizabeth Cochran in 1864, Bly was hired by the Pittsburgh Dispatch after she wrote an impassioned letter to the editor rebutting a sexist column that appeared in the paper. She was originally assigned to the “Women’s Pages” — covering fashion, society and gardening — but ended up in Mexico as a foreign correspondent.

She spent a year and a half in Mexico, criticizing the dictatorial control the country was under, until she was forced to leave after threat of arrest.

When she returned to America, she talked her way into Joseph Pulitzer’s offices and a job at the New York World — leading to the story that made her name famous.

She took an undercover assignment where she feigned insanity in order to be admitted to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. After spending 10 days eating spoiled food, taking ice baths, and suffering abuse by doctors and nurses, the World sprung Bly and her account of the treatment led to reform of the institution.

She went on to perform and write about a number of feats that would lead to the nickname “Stunt Girl,” including circling the globe in 72 days — eight days ahead of Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days” hero, Phileas T. Fogg.

“But what was really interesting to us, what really drew me to her, was the arc of her life,” Kellogg said. “To us, her exploits were the least interesting thing she did.”

“Stunt Girl” focuses on her life as a whole, he said. It looks at not only her career as a journalist, but her personal relationships, efforts as a feminist, and championship of equal pay and health care, among other things.

“She was an innovator in a lot of ways,” Kellogg said. “This story covers all of the above. It’s funny at times, and touching at times, and that’s really what her life was.”

After weeks of rehearsals, costume design, and tweaks with the music and lines, Stunt Girl opened to a full crowd and will run through April 26. It will then move to the Everett Performing Arts Center from May 1 to May 24.

Friedman, who at one point said he didn’t want to work on Stunt Girl anymore because he had no clear vision of what it was about, said it was great to see the show finally come together.

“It took me awhile to figure out what this was about,” he said. “But eventually, I realized (the play) really hung on the exploration and the complexity of her life. When you really began to explore that and go through it, you can see that the issues in her life are in all of our lives, and it’s about how we get through that.”

The music he wrote to accompany that story matches those feelings, he said. At times it is light, and others heavy, but it always has the flavor of the period.

And seeing it come together at Village Theatre was another perk. Friedman, who has conducted and arranged Broadway musicals and a handful of Disney movies, praised the theater and the talent in the Seattle area, and said the experience was fantastic.

“I hope the people know what they’ve got here,” he said. “Everything is designed to support the art, not the commerciality. This has been perhaps the best artistic experience I have ever had.”

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