Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok may have had a secret love affair that has been realized in the scores of letters exchanged between the two. Now, that correspondence will manifest in a one-woman show entitled Hick: A Love Story that will open at Baltimore's Theatre Project on Feb. 25.
During her tenure as the most important woman in the U.S. during FDR's presidency, Mrs. Roosevelt and Ms. Hickok exchanged upwards of 2,336 letters, all of which were discovered in 1978 by a researcher who opened boxes containing the letters at the FDR Library.
While the correspondence between the two women may have been private and, seemingly, harmless as it never truly physically came to be, it doesn't prevent the onslaught of news reports estimating the contents of the private affair-if it was an affair at all-with FDR proven to be an unfaithful husband.
Terry Baum, who wrote and will star in the one-woman production, remarked on the play:
"I truly felt called to write this play and felt called to be Hick onstage. It's my own special journey. People really dig this play. And the scandalous aspect tends to put butts in seats.
"Hick was the most famous woman journalist of her day, the first woman to get a byline on the front page of The New York Times in 1928. She gave all that up to be with Eleanor. She had to - her AP editor would not stop hounding her for inside scoops."
The scandalous affair between the two is hardly worth assassinating Eleanor's--or Hickock's for that matter--character.
Regardless of the controversy, Baum's new show opens Feb. 25 and will run a two week engagement until March 6. The performance is slated to appear at the Theatre Project on West Preston Street in Baltimore.
Until then, get familiar with the affair in a video below.
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