From Quill to Curtain

I had a humbling but inspiring experience wearing a (historical) fiction hat during a three-part play-wrighting workshop at Ford’s Theatre. From Quill to Curtain: Crafting Plays Inspired by History brought together about fifteen of us, with characters ranging from Elizabeth I to James Baldwin. Howard University professor of Dramaturgy and Playwriting Denise Hart led us in creating—more accurately, starting to create—a 10-minute play.

Ten minutes is a blink and an eternity! My play Harriet & Julia combines real life and imagined conversations in an encounter that Harriet Jacobs and Julia Wilbur had in Civil War Alexandria.

The workshop culminated in mini-staged readings of each playwright’s work, with feedback in a very safe space. Remember the words in my first sentence—inspiring, yet humbling. But I do see a kernel of an idea that could bring the experiences of these women to new audiences.

Relatedly, check out It’s My Party, a play by colleague Ann Timmons about the suffragists in the period leading up to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. I have new respect for her ability to weave historic back story into a piece of entertainment.

Women in the American Revolution

Through the Alexandria Historical Society, I facilitated a talk n late January by historians Rebecca Rose and Cassandra Good on women during the American Revolution. Both wrote entries on their topics for Encyclopedia Virginia: Rebecca on women of the Army in the American Revolution and Cassandra on women’s political participation during the period.

AHS recorded the conversation, available on YouTube. And we’re doing a lot more to explore America’s complex history during the 250th. See below for the next events on February 25 and March 9, and the AHS site for the complete line-up.

History by Committee

I’m involved in two projects to document Alexandria history:

Alexandria Community Remembrance Project Committee of Inquiry: I am part of a group going through the Alexandria Gazette, Washington Evening Star, and other sources to see “what’s been missed” related to race-based criminal and civil justice from 1865 (end of Civil War) to 1902 (Virginia constitution that solidified race-based discrimination). I am focusing on 1865 to 1869. It is sometimes tedious (page by page, day by day), often infuriating (e.g., insulting language), but will create a useful repository.

Alexandria Archaeological Commission Cemetery Sub-committee: We are hoping to nominate the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex, an area with 13 historic cemeteries in the southwestern quadrant of Old Town Alexandria for the National Register of Historic Places. We are now completing what is called a PIF, or Preliminary Information Form, for the Virginia Department of historic resources. If successful, we will prepare a more extensive nomination, but we are off to a great start.

February 25, 7 pm, via Zoom

How Martha Washington Spent the Revolutionary War, with Mary V. Thompson, research historian emerita at Mount Vernon. Free from Alexandria Historical Society, but registration required here.

March 9, 7 pm, via Zoom

An English Tory in Old Town, with public historican Ken Bancroft. The Tory in question is Nicholas Cresswell, who kept a diary of what he did and saw in this critical periond. Free from Alexandria Historical Society, but registration required here.

March 14, 10 to 5, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria

Alexandria’s first Festival of the Book, in collaboration with Virginia Humanities. Authors include Cassandra Good (see above) and others on the Revolutonary, Gilded Age, and Jazz Age periods. For more information and to register (free), go to https://www.alexvabookfest.org

March 21, 9 to 5, Ford’s Theatre, Washington

The Abraham Lincoln Institute and Ford’s Theatre present the 29th annual Abraham Lincoln Institute symposium with panels on Paths to the Civil War and Lincoln’s relationship with the Declaration of Independence, Democracy, and Civic Life. For more information and to register, go here.

Please let me know if you have an upcoming history and/or writing event you would like me to share with others.