East Lynne Theater Celebrates Women's History Month With Reading of SOMETHING TO VOTE FOR
Actors include Pat Dwyer ("Silent Sky"), Rachel Holt ("Dracula" and "Ah, Wilderness!"), Jared Mason Murray ("Summerland"), and more.by BWW News Desk
East Lynne Theater Company will present a reading of "Something to Vote For" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for free, due to support from The New Jersey Council for the Humanities through its "NJ Women Vote: The 19th Amendment at 100" initiative, and The New Jersey Theatre Alliance's "Stages Festival."
Gilman (1860 - 1935) known for her novel "The Yellow Wallpaper," published this forty-minute one-act in her monthly magazine, "The Forerunner," in 1911. Such plays were important for the suffrage movement because they could be read aloud and/or staged in private homes, bringing this controversial topic into living rooms. Many of the British suffrage plays survived - most of the American ones did not. This both witty and profound play takes place in the home of the president of an influential anti-suffrage women's club. When the group is concerned about the purity of milk, a local milk manufacturer, the new milk inspector, a woman who has recently lost a child, and a woman doctor are invited to speak to the club. The doctor puts the need for women to vote at the center of the conversation if these women really want change for the better.