‘The Connie Converse Universe Starring Hope Levy’ – An Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery Gilded in Talent

By Ernest Kearney — After an hour spent with her music, we still do not know who Elizabeth Eaton Converse, “Connie” to her friends, actually was; nor do we, or anyone else, know what became of the singer/songwriter who, at the age of fifty, wrote a letter to friends and family begging them to “let me go, please,” and, simply, disappeared.

All the audience really knows is that Converse’s music and sentiments were ahead of their time and that Hope Levy is an extraordinary performer whose singing can syncopate the heartbeats of an entire audience to any tempo she chooses.   

Levy is not Converse. Levy is a strikingly professional and naturally dazzling entertainer. Converse was the product of a strict religious upbringing. Levy is a kaleidoscope of personality. Converse was inhibited to the point of being shadowless in her own life.

But Levy gives presence to the lost artist and fills her forgotten songs with her own rebounding passion and, in doing so, reclaims the missing Connie Converse from the lost.

***

The Connie Converse Universe Starring Hope Levy

Playing During the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024

at

ACTORS COMPANY (THE LITTLE THEATER)

916 N. Formosa Ave

Sunday June 23 2024, 11:00 AM | 55 mins

Friday June 28 2024, 5:30 PM | 55 mins

Sunday June 30 2024, 12:30 PM | 55 mins

***

Ernest Kearney - author
Written by

An award-winning L.A. playwright and rabble-rouser of note who has hoisted glasses with Orson Welles, been arrested on three continents and once beat up Charlie Manson. His first play, "Among the Vipers" was a semi-finalist in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition and was featured in the Carnegie-Mellon Showcase of New Plays. It was produced at the NPT Theater in Ashland, Oregon and Los Angeles’ celebrated Odyssey Ensemble Theatre. His following play, “The Little Boy Who Loved Monsters” was produced at The Hollywood Actors Theater, where he earned praise from the Los Angeles Times for his “…inordinately creative writing.” The play went on to numerous other productions including Berlin’s The Black Theatre under the direction of Rainer Fassbinder who wrote in his program notes of Kearney, “He is a skilled playwright, but more importantly he is a dangerous one.” Ernest Kearney has worked as literary manager or as dramaturge for among others The Hudson Theater Guild, Nova Diem and the Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, where he still serves on the play selection committee. He has been the recipient of two Dramalogue Awards and a finalist or semi-finalist, three times, in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. His work has been performed by Michael Dunn, Sandra Tsing Loh, Jack Colvin and Billy Bob Thornton, and to date, either as playwright or director, he has upwards of a hundred and thirty productions under his belt, including a few at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater as puppeteer. Kearney remains focused on his writing, as well as living happily ever after with his lovely wife Marlene. His stage reviews and social essays can be found at TheTVolution.com and workingauthor.com. Follow him on Facebook.

No comments

LEAVE A COMMENT

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.