On February 13, 2011, Dangerous Beauty the musical, based on the life of sixteenth-century courtesan poet Veronica Franco, and inspired by the Hollywood film Dangerous Beauty (Warner Bros. 1998) reopened the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles. It boasted a Broadway cast and an all-woman creative team that included Jeannine Dominy, the author of the filmic screenplay, who drew inspiration from my book The Honest Courtesan (1992). Intent on addressing the film's missteps, the writer, producers, and director sought to reinstate the feminist content in Franco's published writings and biography that had been drained from the Hollywood love story that championed romantic intrigue and the sexualized courtesan's body over the outspoken courage of the courtesan poet.

Adapting her original screenplay for the musical book, Dominy returned eleven years later to her powerful biofictional characterization of Franco as a proto-feminist who defended women's autonomy, social justice, and creative freedom. In both the musical and the original screenplay, Veronica struggles to extricate herself from misogynous restrictions that sought to control all Venetian women but never succumbs to victimhood or repentance for the dubious morality associated with her profession. After almost a decade of workshops and performed staged readings at Northwestern, Vassar, ASCAP, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and the Rubicon Theater, the musical highlighted Franco's verbal eloquence and poetic wit. According to the show's creative team, it offered a “sequel to the girls who grew up ‘Defying Gravity’ with Wicked and who are now ready as young women to embrace Veronica Franco” (Behrens).