Michael Rice interviews Joyce Henderson and Richard Harder, co-founders of the theater company Off Broadway West. They are producing the show The Ladies of the Camellias, a look at a fictional meeting between two 19th-century divas.

Off Broadway West presents The Ladies of the Camellias, written by Lillian Groag. It is a fictional meeting between two 19th-century divas, Eleanor Duse and Sarah Bernhardt. Both actresses rivaled each other in reputation, actually playing the same roles on the same stages with the same sets. Playwright Lillian Groag has invented incidents and meetings between the two prima donnas and the men in their lives and uses the mise en scene for a number of wonderful insights about theatre, actors, writers and that strange thing rumored to be on the horizon called a director.

The Ladies of the Camellias runs through May 31, 2008 at The Phoenix Theatre in San Francisco. For tickets and information visit offbroadwaywest.org.

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