What is She’s History?
SHE’S HISTORY! is a play, a school program, a speaker presentation about women who make and made history
Written and Performed by Amy Simon
Cultural Herstorian and Mom On A Mission
When my ten-year-old came home from school one March (Women’s History Month) and told me she planned to do her women’s history project on Cher – or Janet Jackson – I began the work toward SHE’S HISTORY! This herstorical, edutaining performance is based on diaries, letters, publications, and biographies. Most of the dialogue comes from the diaries, letters and interviews. Going back and forth from the past to the present, and finding the funny, I chronicle the struggles and accomplishments of our unheralded, unknown, and forgotten heroines.
There are about forty women in the multi-media show, some of whom I become, and the rest come alive through pictures and stories. You will see Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony multi-task – just like today’s mom – running the house, fixing dinner, and corralling the kids, all while working on the Fourteenth Amendment. You will 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, be blown away by Shirley Chisholm’s humanity, and see what inspired Bella Abzug to fight “the battle for equality”. Hear about Victoria Woodhull (the first woman to run for president) and Hillary Clinton, suffrage, maternal profiling, the road to Seneca Falls, abolition, and more! It’s all there in a fast-paced GAL-A-PALOOZA honoring female America.
I have performed in theaters, schools, libraries, museums, historic sites, and military bases, for students of all ages and genders, women’s groups, and religious, political, and civic organizations. I have several age and audience appropriate versions of the show, which runs anywhere from forty to seventy minutes.
My fee is based on many factors. Please see How to Book the Show for information on how to bring the show to your event or venue.
The SHE’S HISTORY EDUCATION PROJECT is a donation-based, tax-deductible 501C program. Fiscally sponsored by and a collaboration with The Women’s Museum of California, it is a fund set up to bring the play to low income schools at no cost to them. Please visit the SHE’S HISTORY EDUCATION PROJECT page to learn more.
The Ladies In The Show….*
Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony
The Grimke Sisters, Julia Ward Howe, Nancy Pelosi, Pat Schroeder, Gloria Steinem
Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Oprah Winfrey, Golda Meir Margaret Thatcher, Eleanor Roosevelt, Betsy Ross, Sally Hemmings, Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Shelley, Lucretia Mott, Anne Hutchinson, Mary Dyer, Harriet Tubman, Dolley Madison Annie Oakley, Alice Paul, The Pankhursts, Betsy Ross, Mrs. Banks, Sojourner Truth
Malala Yousafzai, Frances Wright and Victoria Woodhull
* not all appear in versions with time constraints.