author
Alice Gerstenberg
1885–1972
A Chicago playwright, actress, and activist, she helped shape the city’s Little Theatre movement and became best known for bold, feminist-leaning experimental drama. Her one-act play "Overtones" remains especially noted for its inventive look at inner and outer lives.
2 Audiobooks
Washington Square Plays
by Lewis Beach, Alice Gerstenberg, Edward Goodman, Philip Moeller
Alice in Wonderland A Dramatization of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass"
by Alice Gerstenberg, Lewis Carroll
About the author
Born in Chicago in 1885, Alice Erya Gerstenberg studied at Bryn Mawr College and then returned to a city that would become central to her creative life. She wrote plays, fiction, and essays, and also worked as an actress and organizer in Chicago’s theatre world.
Gerstenberg is most closely linked with the Little Theatre movement in Chicago, where she supported serious, innovative stage work outside the commercial mainstream. Her best-known play, Overtones (1915), is often remembered for its unusual dramatic structure and for the way it explores women’s social roles, private thoughts, and power struggles.
Alongside her writing, she was active in feminist and civic causes, which fits with the strong-minded, questioning spirit of her work. She died in Chicago in 1972, leaving behind a career that connects early modern American theatre with the growing push for women’s voices to be heard onstage and off.