Chatting with Gloria Steinem.
Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman
Photo Credits: Robin Gallagher
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EVENTS 2024
CELEBRATING WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY…
WOMEN WINNING THE VOTE ON
Sunday, August 25th, 2024 at 2:00pm
A Polished Staged Reading of
BELLA ABZUG…That Beautiful, Ballsy Broad Who Gave ‘Em Hell!
A New Solo Show Written and Performed By Amy Simon
Directed by Karen-Ragan George
http://Buy tickets for BELLA ABZUG: That Beautiful, Ballsy Broad Who Gave ‘Em Hell
A peek into the fascinating, entertaining, far-reaching life of brilliant, hat-wearing, ferociously driven, pugnacious Congresswoman Battling Bella Abzug, whose personality was as big as her mouth.
Synopsis:
From a hardworking, New York middle-class Jewish family, to the United States Congress, watch Bella in her own words “kick the hell out of the establishment”.
Lovingly and painstakingly researched, Bella is brought to life with most of the dialogue coming from books and biographies, interviews, and Bella’s own writings and speeches.
As a young woman, she is defiant, rebellious, and determined to break out of her era’s gender-chains and follow her own path to become a lawyer. From defending actors accused of communism or putting her life in danger defending a wrongly convicted black man in 1950s Mississippi, there is nothing she won’t do or anyone she won’t fight for justice. She was a formidable opponent. Once in Congress, despite being surrounded by “schlemiels”, she fought like hell for the Equal Rights Amendment, childcare, gay rights, the environment, and against racism, ageism, corruption, and more and God help anyone who gets in her way. Whether harassing her staff or demanding President Nixon’s resignation, we watch her refuse to accept the status quo and tirelessly and exhaustingly wear everyone down with her chutzpah.
Review:
BELLA BIOPLAY
And speaking of helping the needy and proletarian theater: Before there was “the Squad,” the House of Representatives had Congressmembers Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug. While the former is dramatized in the new Netflix movie Shirley, the latter is paid loving tribute to in Bella Abzug: That Beautiful, Ballsy Broad Who Gave ‘Em Hell!, beautifully, powerfully written and performed by Amy Simon, who brought the feisty, lefty New York congresswoman to vivid life in a staged reading on March 17 at Theatre West. Thoroughly entertaining as well as educating, Simon’s engrossing one-woman show directed by Karen Ragan-George greatly deserves to find a theater space for a full-run of this one-act, one-actor play once it is ready to hit the boards with this loving homage to that “ballsy broad” nicknamed “Battling Bella.”
Ed Rampell in Hollywood Progressive
LATEST BLOG July 2024
“Laws That Shackle…” and Save The Date For Bella Abzug….
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PAST EVENTS
CELEBRATING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
Monday, March 4th, 2024 at 7:30pm
One Performance of
SHE Is History! The Solo Show
Presented by The Ebell of Los Angeles
The Auditorium
741 South Lucerne Boulevard
FREE parking: Lucerne Blvd. lot
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MORE CELEBRATING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
Sunday, March 17th, 2024 at 2:00pm
A Staged Reading of
BELLA ABZUG…That Beautiful, Ballsy Broad Who Gave ‘Em Hell!
Directed by Karen-Ragan George
https://theatrewest.org/on-stage/bella-abzug
Tuesday, March 14th, 2023 at 7:30pm
Free Staged Reading SHE Is History!
All-Female Full Cast Version
Presented by Theatre West’s New Works Play Festival
3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West. Los Angeles, CA 90068
A months long festival of full length plays.
Celebrate Women’s History Month
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SHE’S HISTORY! FINALLY BACK ONSTAGE!
SUNDAY JUNE 5th, 2022 at 3pm
Theatre West SOLOPALOOZA 2.022
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Amy shares her good journey from divorced mom without a plan
to empowered human kicking creative ass. From Bella Abzug to Kamala Harris, the Her-Story is right here in this 30 minute GOOD NEW EPISODE
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SUNDAY MARCH 20,2022
The Zephyr Theatre * 2:00pm MATINEE
Tickets: $25 (with Discounts)
7456 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles 90038
Metered parking on Melrose and two hour free residential parking.
Info and/or talk to Amy: (310) 308-0947
We had SUCH plans for 2020 – the 100th Anniversary of the Passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Well, NOW we get make up for it!
Watch Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony multitask – just like today’s mom – running the house, fixing dinner and corralling the kids, all while challenging the Fourteenth Amendment. Hear about our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and witness Sojourner Truth’s powerful “Ain’t I Woman speech.” Learn how Alice Paul stole President Wilson’s parade, and see how she suffered for the cause. Watch Nancy Pelosi become the First Female Speaker of The House (the FIRST time!). Learn about Shirley Chisholm’s humanity, and what inspired Bella Abzug. Hear about Pat Schroeder, Katie Couric, Malala Yousafzai, Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Victoria Woodhull (the first woman to run for president) and Hillary Clinton, bloomers, suffrage, maternal profiling, the road to Seneca Falls, abolition and more! It’s all there in a GALA-PALOOZA honoring Female America.
March 2021
Great Plans for Last Year – 2020 – What WAS Supposed To Happen – Didn’t…
SPEECHIFYIN’
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Great Plans for Last Year – 2020 – What WAS Supposed To Happen – Didn’t…
2020 Is The 100th Anniversary Of The Passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920!
Celebrate All YEAR with SHE’S HISTORY!
We Start In March – Women’s History Month!
San Diego: The Women’s Museum of California on Saturday March 21st. Ticket Info Coming
Los Angeles: Sunday, March 29th at 2:00pm The Lounge Theatre Hollywood
BUY TICKETS
Tickets: $20 (with Discounts)
6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90038 (2 blocks East of Vine) Sunday street parking is free. Info and/or talk to Amy: (310) 308-0947
Los Angeles: Sunday, July 12, Presented by LA MADE* at the historic Los Angeles Public Library. FREE!
*LA Made is a FREE cultural series featuring free music, dance, theater, and conversations with local entertainers at libraries throughout the City.
SHOW DESCRIPTION
Watch Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony multitask – just like today’s mom – running the house, fixing dinner and corralling the kids, all while challenging the Fourteenth Amendment. Hear about our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and witness Sojourner Truth’s powerful “Ain’t I Woman speech.” Learn how Alice Paul stole President Wilson’s parade, and see how she suffered for the cause. Watch Nancy Pelosi become the First Female Speaker of The House (the FIRST time!). Learn about Shirley Chisholm’s humanity, and what inspired Bella Abzug. Hear about Pat Schroeder, Katie Couric, Malala Yousafzai, Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Victoria Woodhull (the first woman to run for president) and Hillary Clinton, bloomers, suffrage, maternal profiling, the road to Seneca Falls, abolition and more!
It’s all there in a GALA-PALOOZA honoring Female America.
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LATEST BLOG
SHE Is History Theatre West’s 2018’s Staged Reading of the all female cast
From left to right: Anne Leyden as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Clara Rodriguez as Bella Abzug, Rosemary Thomas as Sojourner Truth, Ashley Taylor as Abigail Adams, Maria Kress as Victoria Woodhull and June Schreiner as Alice Paul.
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The STILL UNPASSED Equal Rights Amendment…
Men and women shall have equal rights throughout The United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.
FAILED AGAIN!
We have been trying to get this passed since 1923! Written by Alice Paul and known as The Lucretia Mott Amendment, introduced on July 23rd, 1923 in Seneca Falls, New York. She was in town celebrating the 75th anniversary of where the very first Women’s Rights Convention was held in 1848. She updated it in 1943 to read:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Just this past APRIL 27, 2023, brought again to Congress and again failed. Passing bills is complicated. There are timelines and deadlines, required numbers of votes necessary to ratify. This time around we needed sixty. Below is some info about what happened.
League Of Women Voters 100 Years Equal Rights Amendment Fails…
As Susan B. Anthony said, “Failure is impossible”.
As Bella Abzug said, “Never ever give up”!
And as I say, “Oy! Vote, vote vote”!
Alice Paul at the Ballot Box
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Mother’s Day….
“Mother’s know that they will have to devote most of themselves and energy to it for many years and that however diligently they do this, they will be blamed for whatever goes wrong.” Psychiatrist Jane Price.
Ahhh. Motherhood. The hardest job in the world and the most important.
Three women are responsible for what is now Mother’s Day. But our completely commercialized Mother’s Day is not what they intended.
Not at all.
Those three women were about helping, peace and caring and unifying a country split by civil war.
It started with Anne Reeves Jarvis, a 19th Century West Virginia mother who wanted to teach local women how to care for their children. So in 1858, she helped start Mothers Day Work Clubs. She also wanted an end to the Civil War and in attempt for reconciliation between Union and Confederate soldiers, she organized Mothers Friendship Day.
Meanwhile, Julia Ward Howe, mother, poet, lecturer, suffragist, and basic badass, campaigned to have “Mother’s Day For Peace” celebrated every year. Mostly known for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, she also wrote “The Mother’s Day Proclamation” in 1870, asking mothers to come together for world peace.
When Ann died in 1905, her daughter Anna Maria Jarvis, who never married or had kids, wanted to honor her mom and all the moms that sacrifice so much. She organized her first Mother’s Day celebration in 1908 and became inspired to have a national holiday devoted to mothers. And she was pissed off that all the national holidays were about men. So she started a letter writing campaign and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure making the second Sunday in May “Mother’s Day”.
And there you have it…
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PAST EVENTS
Sunday November 4th, 2018
2:00PM
Theatre West
SHE’S HISTORY! the longest running solo play in Los Angeles.
Written and Performed by Amy Simon
Directed by Richard Kuhlman with Mark Travis
Tickets: $20 (Discounts Available) Free for kids 10 to 18 years.
3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West.
Los Angeles 90068.
(between Hollywood Bowl and Universal Studios)
BUY TICKETS
Tickets: $20 (Discounts Available) Free for kids 10 to 18 years.
Five Dollar Parking in the lot across the street.
Info: Call Amy at (310) 308-0947
Watch Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony multitask – just like today’s mom – running the house, fixing dinner and corralling the kids, all while working on the Fourteenth Amendment. Hear about our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and witness Sojourner Truth’s powerful “Ain’t I Woman speech.” Learn how Alice Paul stole President Wilson’s parade, and see how she suffered for the cause. Watch Nancy Pelosi become the First Female Speaker of The House. Learn about Shirley Chisholm’s humanity, and what inspired Bella Abzug. Hear about Pat Schroeder, Katie Couric, Malala Yousafzai, Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Victoria Woodhull (the first woman to run for president) and Hillary Clinton, bloomers, suffrage, maternal profiling, the road to Seneca Falls, abolition and more! It’s all there in a GALA-PALOOZA honoring Female America.
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AUGUST 26TH, 2018 WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY
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Sunday, March 18th, 2018
The Lounge Theatre
6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90038
2 blocks East of Vine. Sunday street parking is free.
Tickets: $20 (with Discounts)
Info and/or talk to Amy: (310) 308-0947
Women’s Equality Day 2017
Saturday August 26th 8:00pm
Sunday August 27th 2:00pm
Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd.
LA 90068
Saturday, August 27th at 8:00PM
Please join us for a free staged reading of
A New All Female Multi-Cast Version of
SHE IS HISTORY!
Please join Laraine Newman, Cathy Ladman, Melanie Chartoff, Jane Brucker, and many more and support our campaign to produce and film a staged reading of “SHE IS HISTORY!”, a new play with lots of women, written BY a woman, ABOUT women, who MAKE and MADE history.
I am raising money through Kickstarter with the ultimate goal of getting the play published. Once published, the play can be offered to high schools, colleges, and theaters. The road to play publication by a Samuel French or Dramatists Play Service, starts in a theater.
The reading is at Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West in Los Angeles, at 8:00PM on Saturday, August, 27th. This is the day after Women’s Equality Day, the day we celebrate women WINNING the right to vote in 1920, with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Please click here to check out the campaign:
SHE IS HISTORY!
If you are in Los Angeles on Saturday, August 27th, please make a reservation to attend this free reading of the new
ALL FEMALE “SHE IS HISTORY!”
Info and Reservations: (310) 308-0947
amysimon@sheshistory.com
RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
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SUNDAY MARCH 13th, 2016 at 2:00PM
CELEBRATE WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH!
The Lounge Theatre in Hollywood
6201 Santa Monica Blvd., 90038
2 blocks East of Vine – Sunday street parking is free
( Sunday March 13th is Daylight Savings – clocks go ahead one hour)
(310) 308-0947
Women’s Equality Day 2015
SHOW UP, BECAUSE WE WON…
Yes, we WON … the right to vote!
It’s Women’s Equality Day!
Come celebrate with a performance of
SHE’S HISTORY! at The Lounge Theatre
Sunday, August 23rd, at 5:00 PM
6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90038
(Two blocks East of Vine. Sunday street parking is free.)
Info and Reservations: (310) 308-0947
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 7th at 2:00PM
The Lounge Theatre, Hollywood, California
Part of Hollywood STAG
6201 Santa Monica Blvd. (2 blocks East of Vine)
Produced by Theatre Planners
Tickets: $20
BUY TICKETS
or call (323) 960-7788 to reserve
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SUNDAY OCTOBER 19th at 3:00PM
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS (LOCATED NEXT TO JONES COFFEE)
WEST HOLLYWOOD LIBRARY
625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, , California 90069
Free Parking with validation in the West Hollywood 5-story parking structure
Tickets: $20
Discounts for WEHO residents, seniors and students
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Tuesday, August 26, 2014 6 pm – 9 pm
West Hollywood City Council Chambers & Auto court
625 N. San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Join the West Hollywood City Council and the West Hollywood Women’s Advisory Board for an empowering and interactive event commemorating the 94th anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in the United States.
The celebration will include special guest speakers Keltie Knight, The Insider; Elizabeth Ralston, President, League of Women Voters, Los Angeles, a theatrical performance from the play “She’s History” by Cultural Herstorian Amy Simon, followed by a reception.
The event is FREE and OPEN to the public!
Free Parking with Validation in the 5-story parking structure.
The program will be televised on WeHoTV and available on demand at www.weho.org
RSVP: whwedrsvp@gmail.com or 323-848-6823
Co-Sponsored by: Feminist Majority, Ms. Magazine, National Women’s History Museum, League of Women Voters of Los Angeles,National Council of Jewish Women/Los Angeles, and Hollywood NOW.
LOS ANGELES – SATURDAY JUNE 21st at 3:00PM
Upcoming Special Staged Reading 
Read all about it and more….
Presented by Carla and Leigh McCloskey, whose beautiful private home called OLANDAR is an event venue, filled with amazing art.
Come a little early and enjoy the exhibit before the show.
SAN DIEGO
The WOMEN’S MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA
http://womensmuseumca.org
SATURDAY March 22nd at 7:00PM
SUNDAY MARCH 23rd at 3:00PM
LOS ANGELES
SUNDAYS AT 5PM DECEMBER 8th, 15th, AND 22nd AT THE LOUNGE THEATER
BUY TICKETS
LOS ANGELES
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13th, 2013
2:00PM MATINEE
SHE’S HISTORY! RETURNS TO
The Lounge Theater
in Hollywood
6201 Santa Monica Blvd (two blocks East of Vine)
BUY TICKETS
Saturday September 14th at 11AM
Banning Residence Museum
401 East M Street, Wilmington, CA 90744
Tel: (310) 548-777
THANKSGIVING FUNDRAISER
New York City
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 17th at 7:00PM
The Museum Of Motherhood
401 East 84th Street at 1st Avenue (212.452.9816)
http://www.mommuseum.org/theater/
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NEW YORK CITY
MONDAY NOVEMBER 19th
5:30-8:30PM
Manhattan Borough President’s Office
One Centre Street
Exhibit Runs November 1st-30th
Reception Monday November 19th
Women On The Move Celebrates
The Thirty-fifth Anniversary of
The National
Women’s Conference of 1977
Ticket Info Coming Soon
Presented by Jeanette Watson Sanger and
Diana Mara Henry – Bella Abzug’s Official Photographer
Featuring Former Commissioners, Delegates and Bella’s Former Staffers
Honored Guests Include: Former Commissioner Rita Elway Brogan
Feminist, Author and Activist Kate Millet
and Amy Simon performing as Bella Abzug
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Texas, November 19th, 1977 The Spirit Of Houston
Trail Blazing, Hat-Wearing, Peace-Making Bella Abzug – who joined Congress at the age of fifty – pulled off another miracle, organizing The National Women’s Conference which she got the government to pay for! A Fabulous Federal First and a major major coup! With a “special emphasis on the representation of low-income women, members of diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups, and women of all ages,” every state was represented with two thousand delegates, along with eighteen-thousand women and supportive men, many husbands, who supported their wives by carrying their little babies so the moms could go to meetings. Also carried – a torch from Seneca Falls, New York (home of the First Women’s Conference in 1848) to Houston, Texas. It was presented to Lady Bird Johnson, Betty Ford and Rosalyn Carter who said it was“…the most important and exciting conference I have ever attended”. Also on hand, Coretta Scott King, Maya Angelou, Billie Jean King and of course the glorious Gloria Steinem, to name a few. The thirty-fifth Anniversary of this historic event is being celebrated in Manhattan, Monday, November 19th 2012, with yours truly speaking as Bella Abzug.
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
Lady Bird Johnson, Rosalyn Carter, Betty Ford and Bella Abzug
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PAST EVENTS
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21st at 7:00PM
SHE’S HISTORY! back at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood
6201 Santa Monica Blvd at El Centro (just East of Vine)
July 11th New York City
Los Angeles – Three Matinees In May
SHE’S HISTORY! back at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood
Sundays at 2:00PM
May 6th, Sunday May 13th – MOTHER’S DAY! and Sunday May 20th
New York City, March 2012
Benefit for Museum Of Motherhood
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San Diego, California
March 2012
Women’s Museum Of California Fundraiser
Downtown YWCA Auditorium
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Monterey, California
March 15th
U.S. Army Fort Hunter Liggett
Ethnic Observance Women’s History Month
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Burbank, California
Burbank Public Library Young Adult Services
7:00PM Thursday, February 23, 2012
Buena Vista Branch Library
300 N. Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 238-5620
FREE!
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Boynton Beach, Florida
Monday February 13th
Banyan Springs Woman’s Club
Private Show
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