A play written by bookstore associate Allie Costa, “Femme Noir,” was performed at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica Nov. 6 – 8 and all four performances were sold-out.
Costa’s play, along with three others, was chosen from more than 100 plays to be produced by Green Light Productions for their first Los Angeles showcase, Green Light One-Acts, which featured a wide array of plays written and directed by Los Angeles women.
“My play was a tribute, an homage to film noir,” Costa said. “It’s a dramatic piece set in 1944 Los Angeles when a notorious playboy, who is a nightclub owner, walks into a private detective’s office, and he needs to hire her to solve a murder.”
All four performances were sold out, even after adding seats, and at some performances people had to be turned away at the door, Costa said.
“It was amazing,” Costa said. “People really enjoyed the plays. Some folks that work here came and supported me, which was so incredibly sweet. The feedback that I got from the audience and those involved with production was incredibly flattering and humbling.”
Costa found out her play had been selected in September, and two days later received news that the same play was picked up for a staged reading in New York by the Naked Expedition Project. She said that the timing was “so unbelievably amazing.”
Another of Costa’s plays, a modern-day comedy called “Tofurkey Day,” which she says is the “total opposite of ‘Femme Noir,’” will be produced in December by two different theater companies in Woodland Hills and Chicago.

“I have a lot of projects that I want to do and a lot of projects that my heart’s invested in, so I’m really flattered that all of this is kind of happening at once,” Costa said.