A playwright, clubwoman, novelist and sometime actress, Gerstenberg lived in Chicago for much of her adult life. Both sets of her grandparents were Germans who had immigrated to Chicago in the 1850s and became successful. Her father Erich was a grain merchant who inherited his seat on the Chicago Board of Trade from his own father, and her mother Julia Wieschendorff-Gerstenberg was active in both theatrical and music organizations. An only child, Alice grew up among the elite in Chicago, attending private schools, traveling, and having plenty of social and enrichment opportunities. She attended Bryn Mawr College, acted in school productions and after graduating, spent a short stint in New York City where she connected with theater leaders such as David Belasco and members of the Washington Square Players, an avant-garde theatre group. She later called this a time of establishing a beach head in New York. Returning to Chicago, her primary focus was on the Little Theater movement which supported small and non-commercial theaters. It allowed playwrights to have their work performed without the huge expense of large productions. Gerstenberg began writing one-act plays and was one of the original members of the Little Theater in Chicago, of which her mother was a founder and supporter. She also tried her hand at writing novels, including Unquenched Fire (1912) and The Conscience of Sarah Platt (1915). A common theme in her writing, both her novels and plays were the lives of women, with a feminist critique of social norms that often confined them.
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