This juicy tell-all will be intimate, honest, meaty, and chock-full of spoilers so that we don’t have to skirt around a single topic. You can help direct the conversation with the questions you bring, but we’ll likely rove across everything from maternal ambivalence (or straight-up rage) to feminist awakening; artmaking and the creative drive; who has the right to tell whose story; and maybe how the heck you create equal empathy for two characters in complete opposition to each other. Held virtually on May 22 at 1pm ET, roughly 3 weeks after the book arrives in your hands.

One of the two main characters in The Mother Act is a self-described raging feminist whose passions and choices (including abandoning motherhood) are partly in reaction to a religious upbringing in which women submitted to men and devoted themselves to domesticity. While I’m not quite as fiery as Sadie Jones and didn’t flee in as spectacular a fashion as she does, Sadie’s background draws extensively on my own. “A Real Woman” is a creative non-fiction piece delving into that background through the lens of an alarming encounter I had with my old beliefs, years after I thought I’d left them behind. 

From entranced boy at his father's theatre to actor bringing Shakespeare to the White House, through death and divorce, falling off the stage and falling in love, Richard Sheridan Willis recounts the passions and absurdities of one actor's life. Cast list includes filmstars, knights of the United Kingdom, an American president, a number of ex-wives, and one-true-love Heidi Reimer. (I co-wrote the show, so maybe I had some say in how I was portrayed?) Strolling Player is a unique personal journey through the magic of storytelling…and it reveals a whole lot about what inspired The Mother Act’s theatrical world.