The visage of a Hollywood siren haunts Ava: The Secret Conversations , Images of her famous pursed lips and hourglass silhouette are projected onto the walls of the set in between scenes. Ava Gardner was a mid-century bombshell as famous for her relationships with the likes of Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra as for her films, and by the late 1980s, when the play is set, her own star image seems to oppress her. Hard up for cash, she’s reluctantly agreed to write a memoir, though she’s wary about the man who’s been hired to ghostwrite it. “I either write the book or sell the jewels,” she tells him, “and I’m kinda sentimental about the jewels.”

That line, a great example of an old-fashioned diva simultaneously destabilizing and clinging on to a certain star image, comes from P

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