Brookwrite
Playwright
Full Length Play
Premiered September 7, 2007
The Tabard Theatre Company
This full length history play, inspired by the eponymous book by Erin H. Turner (see sidebar), was a collaboration with six other authors.
The play presents seven women who had significant impact in shaping California history. Their stories are interwoven, told chronologically from the 1840s through 1960s. The women include:
- Dorothea Lange (photojournalist)
- Jessie Fremont (politician's wife, made original expedition possible)
- Mary Austin (pre-Feminist author, activist)
- Mary Ellen Pleasant (civil rights figure)
- Tye Leung Schulze (immigration interpreter, first Chinese pre-suffrage voter)
- Julia Morgan (most prolific architect ever)
- Toby Winema Riddle (Indian interpreter)
Each author drafted the scenes for the seven women in the show. I was brought in a month before rehearsals to pull them together, chronologically interweave them, smooth the transitions, bring a single voice, and create a prologue and epilogue. More rewriting ensued as well.
I also ended up serving as assistant director of the production, as well as creator of the extensive projections used throughout the show.
The play is available for production. Originally performed with 7f, 3m.
More Than Petticoats is inspired by:
Available at Amazon.com
Review: Tabard Theatre's World Premiere Production
"The play unfolds and enfolds seven women's stories in a fascinating procession... amazingly lucid... enthralls with an unending parade of fascinating factoids and little-known history." -- Metro Silicon Valley
