Little Women

Act 1

Prologue (The Attic of the March House)

Jo, a twenty-one year old young woman, sits in the attic of her parents house scribbling an elegiac poem. When her childhood friend Laurie appears she is delighted to see him, but also slightly uneasy. Laurie has just returned from Paris, where he’s married Jo’s sister Amy. Jo teases Laurie: has he married Amy to remain close to Jo? It is worse than she imagines, Laurie loves Amy, and in so doing has fallen out of love with Jo. Laurie asks Jo if she can forgive him, and Jo exclaims relief, though deep inside she is grieving this loss. Laurie, oblivious to Jo’s true feelings, proposes that the two of them return to their past friendship, because it was “perfect as it was.” Hearing this phrase, Jo gets very upset. She mocks the idea of their returning to “normal” and time rewinds to show is what led her to where she is.

Scene 1 (The Attic, two years prior)

Jo and her three sisters, Meg, Beth, and Amy, are inducting their neighbor, Laurie,