Sometimes, it all comes together. This week, I had the pleasure of dramaturging for an On Her Shoulders evening of readings from British Suffrage plays. This project included references to many favorites from past exhibitions, among them Katharine Hepburn. On Her Shoulders is an organization that presents staged readings of plays by women. The evening consisted of three plays from the Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays, as edited by the British actress-scholar Naomi Paxton (2013). It ended with the popular comedy, How the Vote Was Won by Cecily Hamilton and Christopher St. John, commissioned by the Actress Franchise League.

Published by Women's Writers' Suffrage League, London, How the Vote Was Won was re-published and distributed by Dramatic Publishing (Chicago, 1910), which described it as "Easy English comedy…Lively and clever Suffrage sketch…English atmosphere should be suggested but the effectiveness of the plays does not depend on the local color." It became a reliable fund-raising tool in England and the United States since, as well as propaganda, it is "a capital bit of farcical satire," per the Chicago Record April 7, 1911.

The Actress Franchise League was co-founded by Adeline Bourne with actresses, writers and directors who enjoyed transatlantic (Broadway-West End) careers. Bourne (see my blog on Vandamm and the Suffragists) and director Edith Craig (see to illuminate the scene) commissioned plays and monologues for performances at the many rallies, mass meetings and events that raised funds and enthusiasm for the cause. Inspired by laws that assumed that women were protected by male heads of households, the play's off-stage Suffrage leaders have declared a women's general strike, in which all working women leave their jobs and go 'home" to their nearest male relative or (if there is none) to the Workhouse. This will force the men to march on Parliament promoting women's rights so that they go back to their jobs. It was written during an optimistic period in the Suffrage campaign when it was believed that the three political parties were close to supporting voting for rates-paying women. The characters are Horace and Edith Cole, a barely middle-class couple and the invading stream of normally working women relatives. It is both a drawing room comedy and a farce, setting up a physical and social space, then bringing more and more characters into it. Each performer gets to make a solo entrance, quickly establish a character, and make a political point. Finally, Horace gets it and takes his turn at speech-making before marching on Westminster.

Although there is some very specifically British, 1910 language, such as using Union for workhouse, it was exported to the United States and the English-speaking world. Paxton discovered a 1911 production in Johannesburg, sponsored by the Women's Reform Club. It was the finale of a triple bill of suffrage plays with Before the Dawn, set in 1867 London, by Bessie Hatton, A Woman's Influence by Gertrude Jennings, and a reading by novelist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The first presentation, with a transatlantic cast, was given in aid of The Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, for a single matinee on March 31, 1910 at the Maxine Elliott Theatre. It was co-stage managed by Beatrice Forbes-Robertson (who played "Winifred," the militant Suffragist sister-in-law).

She also presented the three plays in Chicago for the benefit of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (March 1911) and in Philadelphia (February 16) under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Limited Suffrage League, the Equal Franchise Society of Pennsylvania and the College Equal Suffrage League. The latter's program included the wonderfully pragmatic statement: "A collection for the benefit of the Suffrage Cause will be taken before the last play. Those who do not wish to give, need not do so, as they have already bought tickets. On the other hand, the audience is asked to remember that the expenses of a Suffrage campaign are very heavy, especially this year, as two Women Suffrage bills are to be presented to the Pennsylvania Legislature and if the Suffragists wish to continue holding meetings and distributing literature they must receive financial support."

Melody Brooks, of On Her Shoulders, discovered a production by the The Connecticut Players in four performances in August 1913. An article by Todd Levy on ConnecticutHistory.org noted that one such performance, possibly attended by Katharine Hepburn's Suffragist mother, was given at the Old Saybrook Musical and Dramatic Club, now called the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center.