I’ll be spending this Studio Week finishing a rehearsal draft script for Helen.; a new play currently under development by The SuperGeographics.
There is a misinterpreted quote from historian Laurel Ulrich, ‘Well behaved women seldom make history’.
After torrents of bumper stickers, novelty oven mitts and coy cards with printed images of quaffed women drinking coffee, Ulrich responded to the popularization of her words. She spoke of how people were often surprised that women have a history. That they existed, lived lives, made choices, told stories, and had impact for generations prior. Ulrich was commenting that in order to be remembered in the history a woman had to exist against, violate the social constructs of their time, an example of what not to do.
I'm very excited by re-examining myth stories that maybe we never sought out, but that most of us know. Figures that are constant, whose stories have never been told from their perspective.
Helen. is an exploration of what happens when a woman from history steps outside of her confinement.