Carlsbad Author's Play about "Girls in Trouble"

Carlsbad resident Karen Truesdell Riehl's latest e-Book, Bad Girl: A Play, is scheduled for release on Mother's Day, May 11 and is dedicated to Planned Parenthood. The play is a fictionalized account of the author's personal experience in a home for unwed mothers. Her memoir, Love & Madness: My Private Years with George C. Scott, recounting her 30-year liaison with the international film star and the birth of their out-of-wedlock love child, was published last year as an eBook.

The playwright explains why she wrote Bad Girl: "I wrote this play as a reminder of the harsh, unforgiving times that were the 1950’s, when uncomfortable words and actions were swept under the rug. If the dialogue sounds last century, or events seem improbable, we can be grateful they do. It's a fictionalized account of what happened to "girls in trouble." But the story is true. I lived it."

Homes for unwed mothers disappeared when contraceptives became readily available and abortion legal. But in the early 1950s a girl who became pregnant "out of wedlock," was often treated as an outcast, a "bad girl," who "got herself pregnant," and needed to be hidden away from polite society.

The fictional Safe Haven Home for Unwed Mothers provides shelter from a judgmental society, but reveals its hypocrisy as well. The young women of this play come from all levels of society, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, sharing only the plight of their unwanted pregnancies.

Marty is large and loud, hiding her vulnerability behind movie star imitations. Tinker is Marty's go-fer, a tiny girl from the hills with a huge heart, who never learned to read.

Mary, the oldest, made the mistake of falling in love with her minister.

Rebecca's a southern belle who swears she's a good girl who was raped and claims to be shocked by the behavior of the other girls.She finds comfort in secretly reading dirty books.

Kameela is frightened and silent, planning to do what she thinks will make her a good girl again.

Sarah watches and learns.

These frightened and angry young outcasts face the life-changing decision of whether to keep or give up their babies for adoption. They find strength in a friendship built on gallows humor and mutual respect.