PUTNEY — Next Stage Arts at 15 Kimball Hill will present Bold Women, Brazen Acts on March 17, at 7:30 p.m., in honor of Women's History Month. Admission is $12 suggested donation at the door.
Bold Women, Brazen Acts is based on That Takes Ovaries! Bold Females and their Brazen Acts, conceived and edited by Rivka Solomon. It is produced by writer, journalist, workshop leader, and speaker Elayne Clift, and co-directed by Rebecca Waxman.
The play features Nan Mann and Nancy Stephens - both well known to audiences at Actors Playhouse Theatre in West Chesterfield, N.H. - joined by Acadia Barrengos, a senior at The Putney School who has participated in many New England Youth Theatre productions, and U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo, a Zimbabwean-American Spoken Word artist and poet who lives in Boston.
According to a news release, when Solomon decided to edit a collection of women's and girls' real-life stories of gutsy acts they'd committed, she had no idea that the book, and the play that followed, would be read and performed around the world.
The book placed all the stories, from frivolous to political, under the umbrella of freedom and empowerment. It became a way of saying to the world, “No way am I accepting the limits placed on me!”
The idea came to Solomon at a party one night when someone told a story about a woman who had done something totally brazen. When he finished, Solomon said, “Wow, that took ovaries!” She decided to use it as the title of a book to add to the literature of women's studies that was rapidly appearing to celebrate women's voices and resilience.
“I envisioned a book that would excite women,” she said in the news release, “and men of all ages who wanted to see their sisters, mothers, grandmothers, friends, and partners lead empowered lives - mothers and father who cared about their daughters growing up self-assured and confident, and girls eager to be part of the growing women's movement.
“That Takes Ovaries! would be for everyone interested in challenging cultures wrought with inequality and double standards and anyone hungry for unabashedly powerful females.”
Convinced by the success of the book, whose message was “What femininity needs is a boost of bravado,” Solomon and her mother, Bobbi Ausubel, also a feminist activist, developed a full-length play based on the stories in That Takes Ovaries!
An open mic at the end of the reading invites audience members to come on stage to share a story about themselves or someone they know whose courageous acts deserve to be heard. Men are especially encouraged to tell a tale of courage - their own or in honor of someone they know or love - perhaps a girlfriend, a relative, or a boss whose actions have inspired or encouraged them or made them laugh.
For more information, contact [email protected] or call 802-387-0102.