Business & Pleasure
A theater actress, 24-year-old Susan thinks life is on the upswing when Club Topaz, where she works, agrees to her idea to add culture to their jazz by staging Wilde and Shakespeare plays: she’s even more over the moon when a wealthy older widower, Lewis Sinclair, is lured by her stagecraft and wants her for his wife. But as their relationship begins to sour, and she struggles to make a meaningful connection with his friends—particularly young agent Minerva Reinholdt—she struggles to find a reason to remain, and struggles more to convince herself that she isn’t staying for money. Yet, when her landlord takes her visitor for the John of a prostitute and Susan’s home is threatened, she’s given no choice but to marry her lover and become Mrs. Sinclair. As, through small gaslighting and petty attempts to reshape her personality, Susan struggles to maintain herself, Minerva finds herself with an unexpected pregnancy and must make her own decision about the type of woman she wants to be: but for our actress, the choice is not so clear.
Business and Pleasure is a two-act play running about eighty minutes and requiring seven actors. It has not yet been produced.