Laura Justine "Jessie" Bonstelle was an actress, theater director, and drama company manager. She managed stock companies at the Star Theater in Buffalo, and later founded her own theater in Detroit.
Buffalo drama critic Marian de Forest wrote the first stage play of the novel Little Women. She and Jessie Bonstelle, an actress and theatre manager, received permission from Louisa May Alcott's family to write and stage the story. This production…