“A Shadow of Her Own”: a performance created by Joseph. J. Corso, Jr. at the Great Neck Library

Join us for an afternoon of music and theatre with local Great Neck performers and playwrights! A Shadow of Her Own is a fictional account of the mudslinging and corruption of the 1896 U.S. Presidential election played out in New York City. It enacts a feminist manifesto aimed at male chauvinism, misogyny and sexual abuse, especially in journalistic circles. The main characters are Lucian Dan Cody and Ellen Bayne Collins, loosely based on aspects of the lives of writer/journalist Ambrose Bierce (1842-c.1914) and investigative journalist/author Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane, 1864-1922).

About the Author
Joseph J. Corso, Jr. has been involved with American Musical Theater as both a writer of musical librettos and teacher for Elderhostel/Road Scholar programs offered in California and New York from 1998 through 2019. In the 1970s, he worked with the New Hyde Park Players in Nassau County as a sometime actor and librettist and/or songwriter. In 1976 he appeared in the Player’s production of 1776, and wrote the libretto to Washington: A Man and His Country, in collaboration with Marilyn McClean, composer, pianist and director of the Player’s production. That experience prompted Corso to join the New School’s Workshop for Writing Musicals between 1976 and 1981.

In the Fall of 1980, Corso first met composer Evelyn Durso who joined the workshop. They began a collaboration on Canaan’s Children, a musical version of Mark Twain’s novel, Huckleberry Finn. In the midst of their collaboration, Marilyn McClean suggested to them that if they created an original musical the New Hyde Players would produce it in their 1982 season.

The libretto for A Shadow of Her Own, with music by Evelyn Durso, was the result, produced in June 1982. Now, some 42 years later, Corso has reconstructed and reedited Shadow’s libretto, while staying true to Durso’s music. Sadly, she passed away in 2009. Corso believes that their Shadow musical can resonate with women who continue to struggle, seeking equality and recognition in both life and the professional workplace still dominated by men.

Corso’s wife, Barbara, is the one indispensable person in his life for over 62 years of marriage and partnership. As a high school teacher, she proofread the evolving text of Shadow to assure that spelling, grammar and sense were accurate. Barbara has also acted tirelessly as his “Agent” for Shadow, bringing it to the attention of theatrical companies since 1982, hoping for another production.

The Corso family includes three children, their spouses, and two grandchildren with whom Joseph and Barbara spend time in New York, California and Arizona each year.

The performance will be at the Great Neck Library, 159 Bayview Avenue, Great Neck, on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. Registration is preferred but open to all; first come, first seated. For more information, please contact Great Neck Library at (516) 466-8055 or email adultprogramming@greatnecklibrary.org.