The Actors Studio Presents: Iron Butterflies

On Friday, March 5, 2021 at 6:30 we welcome back the Actor’s Studio of Newburyport to the Custom House’s monthly Virtual First Friday event. Players from The Actors Studio return with a virtual version of their annual Women’s History Month program HERstory. Their kickoff event is a short play entitled “Flo Asks After Ida B. Wells” – Two Iconic Social Reformers Debate the Then-and-Now.   Scripted by Adair Rowland, Directed by John Budzina, Musical Assistance by Michael Kimball.  Featuring Arkida Saiwai (Lawrence, MA) and Tajoura (TJ) Davis (Manchester, NH).  There will be a live Q&A following the performances with the cast and production team.

This is the fourth in a series of historical dramatizations penned by Adair Rowland, who has again invited characters from different times to compare notes from a contemporary perspective. Her past plays (Captains’ Wives and Daughters and The Seafaring Journey of Elizabeth Bray) were centered on the hidden women of local history, but African American women were barely credited within the movements they helped pioneer.

The theme this year is “Iron Butterflies”, inspired by the Iron Butterflies of the Women’s Suffrage movement in which Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) played a key role. A celebrity held in high regard by Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony, she not only brought a Chicago contingent of African American women to the Washington March before President Wilson’s 1913 inauguration but was out in front despite being told to keep to the back.

Flo Kennedy (1916-2000) was integral to Second Wave Feminism in the 1970’s; her legal cases spanned Billie Holliday to Bobby Seale, Roe Vs. Wade to anti-Apartheid boycotts, and she famously mentored Gloria Steinem and Toni Morrison. Both Ida and Flo had unique insights about the links between sexism and racism, and both were brilliant media strategists. How are social reformers made? These two women compare how the experience of love and loss forged a conviction in possibility, and how the experience of unity defuses oppression.

This performance, in its entirety, is a members’ only Zoom event. For those interested in other inspiring stories and performances to celebrate Women’s History Month, please go to https://www.newburyportacting.org/womens-herstory-month-2021/