AUGUSTA — Portland Stage will bring several actors and playwright Callie Kimball to the Maine State Library for a free preview and reading of a new play, “Perseverance,” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, according to a news release from the Maine State Museum.
The play, to be held in the Cultural Building, adjacent to the Maine State House, 230 State St., is a special commission by Portland Stage and the Maine Suffrage Centennial Collaborative as part of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in 2019 and 2020. Kimball, who is still refining aspects of the play in anticipation of a full staging by Portland Stage next year, will be on hand following the reading for a discussion and audience comments.
The play is set during August and October in 1920 and 2020 in a cellar and the kitchen of a forgotten municipal building in the fictional rural town of Hillcroft, Maine, as well as at the front door of a museum. In 1920, Perseverance “Percy” Turner, an African-American schoolteacher, writer and suffragist, is determined to elevate her students above the circumstances in which they were born. One hundred years later, in the same town, Dawn Davis, a white schoolteacher, is running for office on a platform of education reform. The two women’s stories intertwine as questions about the ownership of history take center stage, according to the release.
Perseverance illuminates the complexities at the heart of the suffrage movement and highlights the contributions of African-American women who were often sidelined by white suffragists. By juxtaposing past and present, Kimball reveals the bravery and profound divisions that can shape the course of social movements.
“Perseverance” fills a notable gap in American theater, according to Anita Stewart, executive and artistic director of Portland Stage. There are currently no significant theatrical works on women’s suffrage. As Stewart comments, “Kimball’s play has the potential to greatly enrich the field of theater and America’s cultural heritage,” according to the release.
Kimball earned her Master of Fine Arts degree at Hunter College, where she won the Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Award two years in a row. She has since won many other grants, awards and prizes; her plays have been produced and developed in theaters across the country. S
he is an affiliate artist at Portland Stage Company, playwright-in-residence at Theater at Monmouth, and a former MacDowell Fellow. Kimball’s first education job was teaching Shakespeare in a juvenile detention facility and she has taught playwriting to more than 1,000 students through various nonprofit arts organizations and colleges.
The themes of her plays range from historical dramas and classical adaptations to socio-political comedies and futuristic dystopias. Some have described Kimball’s plays as feminist, but in her words, she “just writes plays where the main characters have jobs and goals and happen to be women.”
Portland Stage’s preview and reading of Perseverance, and the appearance of Kimball, are sponsored by the Maine State Museum, Maine State Library, Maine State Archives and Maine Suffrage Centennial Collaborative. A reception and refreshments at 5:30 p.m. precede the reading, which begins at 6 p.m.
For more information, visit portlandstage.org, mainestatemuseum.org, or mainesuffragecentennial.org.
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