Pulling Harvey Out of Her Hat: The Amazing Story of Mary Coyle Chase

(Hardback)

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Talk about working from home. . . . Pulling Harvey Out of Her Hat chronicles the story of how Mary Chase--a housewife with three children from a working-class Irish community in Denver, Colorado--became a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright for Harvey, a Broadway comedy about a gentle soul and his invisible six-foot-and-one-half-inch-tall rabbit friend. This entertaining and inspiring account traces how Chase achieved her dream of becoming a famous playwright while remaining in Denver--where she worked for the Rocky Mountain News, married an editor, and raised a family.

Pulling Harvey Out of Her Hat includes many vignettes and unforgettable stories about the theater industry. It brings to life the history of Franklin Roosevelt's Federal Theatre Project; provides readers with an insider's view of the Broadway scene in the 1940s; and highlights the importance of theater personalities, including Brock Pemberton (Harvey's producer), Antoinette Perry (Harvey's director and namesake for the Tony Awards), and Frank Fay and Jimmy Stewart (actors who played Elwood Dowd, the amiable, slightly tipsy gentleman lead character).

The author of fourteen plays, three screenplays, and two award-winning children's books, Mary Chase created Harvey to counter sadness during the height of World War II. It would win the 1945 Pulitzer Prize (beating out Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie) and remain to this day one of the most beloved and underappreciated works of the twentieth century.

Reviews

A very enjoyable and interesting story that needs to be told. -- David Forsyth, Clear Creek County Historian
A well-researched and detailed biography of Pulitzer Prizewinner Mary Chase. Her beloved play, Harvey, written in 1944, is still being produced todayin theatres around the world. -- Joanna H. Kraus, playwright, Professor Emerita, State University of New York
A charming, intimate portrait of Denver playwright Mary Coyle Chase... weaves history into the narrative to give the necessary perspective on the era in which Chases blockbuster Harvey was written and further explores far beyond the Harvey narrative in detailed explanation of the totality of Chases work including her extensive efforts with childrens plays. -- Cle Cervi Symons, publisher of the Cervi Journal

Author Bio

Mimi Pockross is an award-winning freelance writer who specializes in writing about the arts, education and family. She is a former speech and drama teacher, television producer and art gallery owner. Pockross earned her bachelors degree in teaching speech at the University of Illinois and her masters degree in communications at Northwestern University. Like Mary Chase, she is a wife, mother and grandmother who also writes and, like Mary Chase, she is a longtime resident of Colorado.