The Mistress Cycle

AWOL Project presents an all-star reading of the award-winning musical The Mistress Cycle, with Rebecca Luker, Mary Bond Davis, Julia Murney, Stephanie Bast, and Sally Wilfort. The show is written by Jenny Giering and Beth Blatt, and is directed by Joe Calarco.

The Mistress Cycle mixes elements of both book musical and song cycle to tell the story of Tess, a Manhattan photographer who meets a married man and is deciding how to handle the relationship. As she weighs her options, we meet four historical mistresses who faced many of the same issues: Anais Nin, the famous sexual adventurer from the early 20th century; Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King Henri II of France in the 1500s, who was forced to live under the same roof with her lover and his wife; Lulu White, a turn-of-the-century bordello madame who entrusted her married paramour of 25 years with $100,000…and then never saw him again; and Ching, a 14-year-old girl living in 12th century China who is sold to a much older man as his concubine.