Vivien Leigh, The Last Press Conference

Vivien Leigh, The Last Press Conference is a one woman tour-de-force written by Marcy Lafferty and comprises essentially Miss Leigh’s own words. As the play begins, Leigh sweeps onto the stage for her last press conference — still the glamorous movie star. But it’s an illusion. Long past Scarlett’s prime, no longer the Georgia peach, she is the thorny English rose who orchestrated her career and romance with Sir Laurence Olivier, no matter the cost.

She drifts between past and present, the past always present, in an attempt to define herself this one last time, exposing Vivien, the world’s darling, desperate for truth and stripped to the bone. Driven by the duel demons of manic depression and tuberculosis, Leigh believed herself to be defined by three roles – Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind, Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire, and Lady O, the wife of Olivier — and was tortured by all of them.