Event

UNVEILING LIBERTY

About the play:
It's 1886 and ten-year-old Isabelle is enamored of the enormous statue about to be unveiled in New York harbor. Her father and brother are going to go watch the dedication, and Isabelle doesn't understand why she's not allowed, just because she's a girl. But it turns out that the very thing Isabelle loves about the statue- that a woman has been chosen to represent liberty- has drawn the attention of the Woman's Suffrage Association. They have something to say about it and a daring plan to make themselves heard. Meanwhile Jackie, a young black woman, has her own thoughts about this statue, but is she even at liberty to express them? With cameo appearances by Lillian Devereux Blake, Emma Lazarus, Joseph Pulitzer and others, this play explores the state of women's rights at the time of the birth of an iconic landmark.

Why This Play Now?
Unveiling Liberty has been in the works for a while and is just blossoming now, at a remarkable and challenging moment in the history of our country. We believe that a story like this one, about the history of gender inequality in the United States, the early suffrage and women's rights movements and the intersection between gender and racial inequality, is more relevant now than ever. What truly is the meaning of freedom?

Why Speranza?
Speranza is a professional women's theatre company that focuses on the issues and stories of women. UNVEILING LIBERTY focuses on women's rights, particularly voting rights, at the period of time when the Statue of Liberty was being unveiled - a statue of a woman meant to symbolize freedom but were women truly free?