Five St. Louis theater companies are joining forces this week for a free program of script-in-hand readings exploring the state of American democracy, timed just days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The nine short plays, staged at Grand Center as part of the High Low Reading Room program, touch on scenarios ranging from a U.S. border agent to banned books to an independent journalist clashing with a local politician.
The St. Louis event is one local branch of a much larger undertaking called Women+ on the Edge of Democracy, a nationwide initiative inviting communities across the country and beyond to stage short plays about democracy ahead of the midterms, according to democracy.flynnvt.org. As reported by St. Louis Public Radio, the local readings bring together St. Louis Actors, That Uppity Theatre Company, Bread and Roses Missouri, Moonstone Theatre Company and Subversive Theatricals for a Thursday night that combines performance, discussion and socializing, organizers say.
A Script Drawn From Real Life at a QuikTrip
The nine plays performed in St. Louis were selected from 34 works newly written for Women+ on the Edge of Democracy events, per the station's report. Among the performers is Carmen Garcia, a Ladue resident and actor of Mexican descent, who said her scene reflected on feeling menaced by a state trooper at a QuikTrip several weeks earlier, according to the same account.
Joan Lipkin, artistic director of That Uppity Theatre Company, is presenting the reading alongside Fannie Belle Lebby in partnership with Bread and Roses Missouri, Moonstone Theatre Company and Subversive Theatricals, the station notes. Lipkin said the event can galvanize people who feel overwhelmed, exhausted or complacent and help them feel camaraderie, per the same account. Playwrights behind the nine plays include women who won or were finalists for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the station's report adds.
Jocelyn Padilla, who rehearsed at Lipkin's home in the Central West End, said the free event welcomes anyone to watch the shows and ask questions, according to St. Louis Public Radio. Missouri's contribution to the wider project also includes a world-premiere performance by Michelle Hand of Heidi Schreck's 10-minute play Searching for Elsie Parrish, the outlet reports, which will be staged after a matinee performance of What the Constitution Means to Me at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
Why Schreck Wrote About a Hotel Maid's Fight for Fair Wages
Schreck wrote Searching for Elsie Parrish after learning about hotel maid Elsie Parrish's long fight for fairer wages, a story that stayed with the playwright and eventually formed the basis of the new script, according to Vogue. The outlet describes the overall project as an anthology of new plays by female-identifying and nonbinary writers.
A Nationwide Project Rooted in Vermont
Women+ on the Edge of Democracy was initiated and commissioned by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in partnership with the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, according to democracy.flynnvt.org. Official Flynn materials describe the project as including 34 commissioned plays and monologues, while Traverse Theatre in Scotland describes it as bringing together 36 women+ playwrights from around the world, a discrepancy neither source resolves. The project asks playwrights to grapple with the current state of democracy in America and what history, global context or futurism can offer in this moment, according to Traverse Theatre, with plays spanning comedy and tragedy, rage and tenderness, hope and fear as the country approaches the midterms.
Similar events are happening in 40 states, Canada, Scotland and Australia, per the St. Louis Public Radio report. As of Sept. 16, democracy.flynnvt.org reported that 54 theaters and organizations from 30 different states had confirmed participation, and the project's organizers describe it as growing community by community. No theater experience or special staging is required to take part, the site notes, and communities can participate simply by reading a single 10-minute play with a class, book club or group of friends. Nonprofit organizations may stage any of the plays free to the public without performance-rights fees between Oct. 23 and Nov. 3, according to American Theatre.
From Burlington to Scotland, a Shared Calendar
The project's hub event took place in Burlington, Vermont, on Oct. 24, where all 34 commissioned plays and monologues were performed together in a single day, the only such gathering in the nationwide series, according to democracy.flynnvt.org's event map. Flynn's own site describes the program as a collective portrait of a nation in doubt and transformation, seen through the eyes of women+ playwrights from around the world.
Elsewhere on the calendar, Princeton University's Program in Theater and Music Theater presented a reading of new short plays by women playwrights as part of the initiative on Oct. 26, according to the Lewis Center for the Arts. In Scotland, informal readings were scheduled first at the Traverse on Wednesday and then at the Tron Theatre on Thursday, per Traverse Theatre's listing. And Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, is set to present readings of nine 10-minute plays from the project at 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, in two acts with talkbacks following each, according to the Berkshire Eagle.
