The Recluse of Herald Square 

Book and lyrics, Lisa Hall
Music and lyrics, Alec Powell 

In 1931 at the Herald Square Hotel in New York, Ida Wood opened her door and allowed outsiders to see her room for the first time in two decades. Ida was in her nineties, and she was a total mystery. The room itself was a dramatic hoard, and one million dollars was found hidden beneath the detritus. Investigations revealed that Ida's identity was fake: she had fabricated her background and name, leaving an orphaned fortune and no clear heirs. It would take a journey full of bombshells and revelatory twists to discover who she really was. During that time, the astonishing details of her self-designed life also came to light: meeting Abraham Lincoln, dancing with the Prince of Wales, owning a newspaper, and a life in high society. Who was Ida, really? Her story may have been invented, but what she lived, how she lived, was real. The spark of authentic experience can never be suppressed, and the desire to live fully can never be erased. In many ways, Ida was who she pretended to be.