Midnight and Moll Flanders

By Marie Kohler

Adapted from the novel Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

April 2027

Moll Flanders’ mythic drive for love and survival led her to astonishing adventures—romantic escapades, multiple marriages and a career as an infamous London thief. A free adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s classic novel, the play begins on the eve of Moll’s hanging at Newgate Prison as she tells her story to the minister, who is bent on offering her a last, unlikely chance at salvation. The play tracks a double journey of transformation for both Moll and the minister, who cannot help being mesmerized—and moved—by her astounding tale. Midnight and Moll Flanders explores the influence of gender, class, free will and luck in an era as wildly entrepreneurial as our own.