Canarsie Suite: At the Edge of Vaudeville

is a tawdry, tacky, and hilarious Vaudeville

Noir that celebrates the gritty stage life of female entertainers in the early 1900’s as it chronicles the disintegrating LeRoy Sister Act. 

At the Vaudeville era's close, the gilded dreams of small-time performers Birdie and Gladys LeRoy unravel at the seams: Birdie thrashes in an existential crisis while anything-for-a-smile Gladys battles to save the LeRoy Sister-Act from self destruction. The work was inspired by historic tales of the failed "Golden City" in Canarsie, Brooklyn and by real figures such as Frances Gumm before she became Judy Garland, the Cherry Sisters who dodged many a rotten tomato, and Georgia Lee, the great “Lady of the Evening” on the Alaskan frontier. Canarsie Suite weaves a tale of dysfunction and

perseverance through a side-splitting carnival of dance, song, knife throwing, acrobatic gorillas, and High Melodrama based on authentic 1910 Vaudeville scripts.

​