Stunt Girl is about the life of Nellie Bly, New York’s first female reporter and likely the first person to go undercover to get a story. To get a job with Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World, Nellie pretended to be insane, got herself committed to the Women’s Insane Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, then wrote a series of articles about the appalling conditions there.

She was so successful that she spawned an entire generation of “stunt girls,” women who risked their lives for a story. At one point every paper in New York had a stunt girl.

If she had done only that, she would have been a great subject for a musical. But all through her life, Nellie pulled off a series of firsts, including the first woman to run a large company and the first female war reporter – all at a time when women weren’t allowed to vote.

Some people have questioned the title, but what I like about it is the irony. No matter what she accomplished and how much she accomplished, there were always those who judged what she did as a “stunt,” not something a woman was meant to do.