These Gilded Souls

‘I should go and see my old friend, Jay Gatsby, out on Long Island. He’ll know what to do.'

In December of 2022, Aly Kantor's world premiere adaptation of The Great Gatsby came home to Long Island.  

In the ruins of a Gold Coast mansion, Nick Carraway finds the ghosts of his past. Through memories of Jazz Age decadence, murder, and the mysterious Jay Gatsby, Aly Kantor weaves a queer perspective from the classic American novel, in this world premiere adaptation presented by EastLine Theatre in association with Westbury Arts.

Anjor’s Note: Playing Daisy a dream and an honor—and, funnily enough, felt like I was coming full circle. At fourteen years old, I had read The Great Gatsby for the first time, and I remembered getting a bit upset when everyone wrote off Daisy as a ditz and a floozy, and I channeled that energy into a ten-page final paper that argued that she was only what society and her abusive marriage allowed her to be, positing that her “beautiful fool” line was a rare moment of clarity that Nick, the narrator, lets the reader in on. Ten years later, at twenty-four, I was playing Daisy, and doing a monologue centered around that exact idea.

This role was a challenging and rewarding one. I drew from many different things to help me build this character, researching mannerisms and inflections of the time period, delving deeper into both the script and the source material, and having long discussions with my direction and scene partners about our characters, their back story, their motivations, and the ghost stories we were bringing to life.