|
Event
The Mill Project
TheatreTruck presents THE MILL PROJECT: an original new play exploring women's bodies in labor and resistance in the age of industrialization.
Performances June 22-25 at 7:30pm on the Leeds Common across from the historic Nonotuck silk mill. The audience is invited to bring a blanket or chair and a picnic in the tradition of outdoor Summer theatre.
This performance is recommended for ages 14 and up. Parking is available in the Chartpak lot. In the event of heavy showers or storms,purchased tickets will be accepted at any other performance. www.theTheatreTruck.com
The Mill Project deconstructs the historical record, re-membering & embodying women's experience of labor in the textile mills of nineteenth century New England through a performance-collage drawing on letters, newspapers, pamphlets and etiquette books. Woven in a tapestry of original music and movement, the play puts the mill girls of factory towns like Leeds and Lowell into relationship with the experience of American women today. The Mill Project invites the audience to place themselves in history while imagining our shared future.
The Mill Project was conceived by TheatreTruck cofounders Brianna Sloane and Elizabeth Pangburn and created by Sloane and Pangburn with Emily MacLeod, Emma Ayres, Christine Stevens, Jayme Winell, Robyn Sutton- Fernández, Maya Lapping Rivera and Julia Read.
This performance, featuring five local actors, was devised by the ensemble using historical research to launch an investigative and creative process. The result is an exploration of the first generation of American women who worked away from home: their freedoms and exploitations, their strengths and the dangers they faced, and the expectations society held for them. The rebellion of these early female communities against exploitation led to the early labor movement in the United States.
We endeavour to be submissive, cheerful and contented with the lot marked out for us.
- H.F., the Lowell Offering, 1845.
Oh sing me the song of the Factory Girl!
The honest and fair and true
-J.H. Warland, 1846
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for but we fight for roses, too.
- James Oppenheimer, Bread & Roses, 1911
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Northampton Arts Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and with support from the Leeds Civic Association and the Bement School.
TheatreTruck is a Collaborative of multidisciplinary artists crafting mobile and site-specific performance, sustainably and playfully. Their inaugural production, The Emily Dickinson Project (2015), which took place in the house and grounds of the poets Amherst homestead, sold out before it opened. The Water Project (Immersive) brought over 300 audience members to New Salem last September for an immersive experience set to live music.
|
|
 |
LocationLeeds Common, across from the historic Nonotuck silk mill (View)
Mulberry and Main St
Leeds , MA 01053
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 14 |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
|
Contact
|
