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Chautauqua Festival 2023 – Secrets Revealed – Nellie Bly

June 15 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Nellie Bly (1864-1922) performed by Anne Pasquale.

Elizabeth Cochrane, better know as stunt reporter Nellie Bly, understood the importance of selective revelation in order to maintain a well-crafted public persona. Ms Bly had many secrets: What was the true nature of her love interests? Was she a closet smoker with a fondness for a fine cigar? Historians do not tell us.  A secret they do reveal is that Bly was chiefly an inventor and entrepreneur. She had the uncanny ability to identify a need, invent a marketable solution, and sell it.  After marrying Robert Seaman in 1895, she inherited the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company when she was widowed in 1904.  As owner and manager, she initiated a social welfare program for her employees, invented the 55-gallon steel drum, the stackable garbage can, and held 25 patents in her name. Yet, it is her initial creation, the persona of Nellie Bly, whose eyewitness stunt reporting established Elizabeth Cochrane on the world stage and catapulted her to fame, that provided what little financial security she, and the family to who she was devoted, knew throughout her lifetime.

Anne Pasquale (actress and playwright) trained at LAMDA and the New York School of the Arts. Anne creates and tours her repertoire of Living History Programs for audiences of all ages in venues along the east coast.  She is a member of The Actors Studio and a founding member of the Accidental Repertory Theatre (ART). NY Off Broadway credits include Martha in Virginia Wolf, Serafina Della Rosa in the Rose Tattoo, Emma Goldman in The Haymarket Chronicle and Kirstina Linde in Variations on a Dolls House.  She is the recipient of the 2015 Broadway World Rhode Island best writer and performer award for her solo show, BOB. You can find out more about Anne @ annepasquale.com.

Rogow Community Room, Transylvania County Library

212 South Gaston Street
Brevard, NC 28712 United States

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212 S Gaston St, Brevard, NC 28712