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The year is 1892. As business magnates continue to rally the community to rebuild after a glue fire destroys most of downtown Seattle, everyone looks to the wealthiest person in town: local brothel owner Madame Lou Graham.

This historical fiction features nine original Magritte & Rosen songs inspired by traveling troubadours and cabaret jazz singers of the American west.  

Annex Theatre will be presenting a concert reading of the work February 4th and 5th. Learn more here. This show is written by the multitalented Jayne Hubbard. 

Timeline
-1888: Madame Lou Graham opens her Wild West-era brothel, located at 3rd and Washington in Pioneer Square, Seattle, now considered a “major city.”
-1889: An overheated glue pot starts the Great Seattle Fire, which destroys a majority of the business district and waterfront, including the Red Light District.
-1890 – 1892: The rebuilding era in Seattle and the events of DIRTY take place.
-1893: The stock market crashes triggers The Great Panic. The nation goes into a four-year economic depression. In King County, Lou Graham supports the financial recovery.
-1897: The Klondike Gold Rush kicks off, bringing prosperity to the Puget Sound region.
-1903: Madame Lou Graham dies in San Francisco.

The Great Fire
In the uncharacteristically dry heat of the afternoon on June 6, 1889, an overheated glue pot burst into flames on Front Street (now 1st Avenue), starting a fire that destroyed much of Seattle’s commercial and waterfront property. The damage spread from University Street to Dearborn Street and from Elliott Bay to the east, up to what is known today as 4th Avenue S. Volunteer firefighters from Seattle to Tacoma rushed to fight the fire, but it quickly spread out of control until it ran out of material to burn. Thankfully, no lives were lost.

Cast
Lou – Holly Vander Hyde
Amber – Kendra Tamär Budd
Jo – Ariel Rose Horton
Hazel – Jessica Marvin-Romero
Ann – Anamaria Guerzon
French Lily – Jeanie Lee Cookston
Allen – Rhys Daly
Frances – Kaelyn Langer Mendonca
Stage Directions – Miki Murray

Crew
Playwright – Jayne Hubbard
Director – Suz Pontillo
Composers – Alara Magritte & Daniel Rosen
Music Director – Nick Bringhurst
Dramaturg & Production Manager – Catherine Blake Smith
Technical Consultant – Jordan Somers
Vision Mixer – Ben Laurance

Madame Lou Graham
What we “know” of Lou Graham is mostly invented, since there are no known surviving photographs, letters, or diary entries. Through public documentation, we do know some things. She was born Dorothea Georgine Emile Ohben in Germany in 1862, and emigrated to New York City at age 16. In her 30s, she ran a clean and elegant “bed house” with entertainment for prominent and important men.

After the building was destroyed in the Great Fire of Seattle in 1889, she bought up land, and constructed some of the first new buildings to reopen the city. She funded Puget Sound National Bank and construction of new buildings in Pioneer Square, and purchased land in Bellingham, Tacoma, and beyond.

As the city’s population grew and new leadership shut down the Red Light District at the start of the 20th century, Graham moved to San Francisco, where she died soon after, in 1903. With no will, no living descendants, and only the intent filed to naturalize as a US citizen, her assets were distributed among her siblings and strangers after her death.

Although she is credited with gifting the largest donation to the King County Education system, that is only evidenced by one of her former plots of land being home to the office for the Highline Public School district.


Further Reading
Notoriously Bad Character by Hannah Brooks Olsen (2024)
This is who we were: 1880 – 1899 by Laura Mars, Scott Derks, ed. (2015)
The Great Seattle Fire Of June 6, 1889 by Austin & Scott (1965)
Wicked Seattle by Teresa Nordheim (2020)
HistoryLink.org, The Free Encyclopedia of Washington State history