Reporter Girl is Laura Rohrman’s full-length play about cartoonist Dale Messick, who created of the famous cartoon strip Brenda Starr Reporter in 1940. Directed by BRONWEN SHEARS the play is a is a sexy re-imagining of Messick’s life in the 1940’s just as her career was taking off.
Dale Messick was born in South Bend Indiana in 1906, and made her way to New York City working as a greeting card artist in the early 1930’s. In April 1940, she gained major success when her cartoon strip Brenda Starr Reporter won a contest in the Daily News and launched her long cartooning career. The strip was very popular and ran for 71 years and only just ended in 2011. Dale Messick wrote and drew the strip for 40 years, retiring in 1980 when she moved to Santa Rosa, CA to be near her daughter and two grandchildren, Laura “Noni” Rohrman — the playwright — and her grandson Curt and their mother, Starr Rohrman (Dale’s only child). She lived mostly in Oakmont, CA, and was a colorful character in the area, often sketching people wherever she went. She passed away after a long illness in 2005, just shy of 98.
Dale Messick is credited with being the first female syndicated cartoonist in the world. At its height of popularity, Brenda Starr Reporter was syndicated in over 250 newspapers worldwide and in 1945 Brenda Starr got a full-color Sunday page. In 1977 Brenda Starr’s wedding to long-time love Basil St. John was celebrated worldwide.