MARION, OH— The Marion Women’s Club & Home was transformed to a Broadway stage Friday – with New York City producers and directors behind the scenes.
Earlier in the week, Ohio State Marion students studying women’s history, under Professor Margaret Sumner, transformed their questions about the landscape of women’s rights into an exciting night of theater.
“Ever since the American Revolution, there have been groups of women organizing to make a positive impact on the nation,” explained Sumner, who also serves on the Club’s board of directors. “In my course, OSU students explore historical documents tracing this legacy of women's civic engagement, focusing especially on the Marion Women's Club as a local ‘case study.’”
As they write their plays, Sumner added, students draw on this historical knowledge to explore an aspect of women's experience or a problem in American society that women's organizations traditionally worked to improve.
“I love watching my students transform from nervous unsure writers into creative, confident playwrights, determined to get their historically informed message out to an audience,” she pointed out.
Student playwrights and the title of their play were: “Broadway Diner” by Izzy Wickline; “Bound in the Beliefs of Society” by Annie Mathew; “To Vote or Not to Vote” by Alister Murdock; “Time to Heal” by Chloe Sherbourne; “Birth Control” by Kendra Brown; “Not Just a Phone” by Robert Kallgren; “The Glass Ceiling” by Eva Kodicovic; “The Choice” by Avery Gill; “Unspoken Things (Police Station)” by Emma McDonald; and “Greed in Higher Education” by Coda Gahris.
The project is facilitated by JNS Theater for Social Change in New York City: Jenn Gillett and Padraic Lillis, Teaching Artists; and led by Marion native Julia Hansen, artistic director.
Community actors “starring” in the plays were: Clare Stevenson, Lois Abonjuah, Abraham Nixon, Carson Maharry, Tara Dyer, Jennifer Schlueter, Wendy Weichenthal, Judy Tong, Sharol Herr, Sue Wilhelm, John Maharry, and Valerie Wigton.
The project between Ohio State Marion, Marion Women’s Club and the Theater for Social Change brings the art of playwriting and research curriculum to universities in the belief that storytelling is an outstanding path towards understanding and addressing the social issues of our time.
Recently, the collaboration Sumner has established between Ohio State Marion and the Marion Women’s Club & Home was named a “Program of Excellence in Engaged Scholarship” by The Ohio State University.
“As an American history professor at The Ohio State University, I’ve always been committed to demonstrating to students that history as a subject is actively explored, debated, and crafted, not passively memorized,” Sumner pointed out. “Since 2019, the Marion Women's Club and its enthusiastic membership have warmly supported me in this goal. Each Spring, Marion clubwomen have opened their amazing archives to my students, helped mentor them as they learned to carry out research as students and summer interns, and hosted numerous public events where students shared their ‘discoveries from the archives’ in presentations, posters or dramatic plays.”
Over the next few weeks, Ohio State Marion students are researching the Club’s historic archives, dating back to 1895, at the historic home as part of Sumner’s “Busy, Brilliant & Bossy” women’s history course.
