Someone  Must  Wash  the  Dishes:  An  Anti-Suffrage  Satire 

In celebration of Women's Equality Day, August 26: the 90th anniversary of the ratification of the Constitution's 19th Amendment for Woman Suffrage, Michele LaRue presents "Someone Must Wash the Dishes: An Anti-Suffrage Satire", followed by a brief lecture and Q&A (1 hour total).

Many women fought against getting the vote in the early 1900s, but none with more charm, prettier clothes—and less logic—than the fictional speaker in this satiric monologue written by pro-suffragist Marie Jenney Howe, back in 1912. “Woman suffrage is the reform against nature,” declares Howe’s unlikely, but irresistibly likeable, heroine.  
 
“Ladies, get what you want. Pound pillows. Make a scene. Make home a hell on earth—but do it in a womanly way! That is so much more dignified and refined than walking up to a ballot box and dropping in a piece of paper!”

Reviewers have called this production “wicked” in its wit, and have labeled Michèle LaRue’s performance "side-splitting." An Illinois native, now based in New York, LaRue is a professional actress who tours nationally with a repertoire of shows by turn-of-the-previous-century American writers. 

Someone Must Wash the Dishes  is a period satire written by pro-Suffragist Marie Jenney Howe and originally published in 1913, by the National American Woman Suffrage Association (precursor of the League of Women Voters). This production, produced by The East Lynne Company, premiered in March 1994, during New York City’s fourth-annual Womenkind Festival. Subsequent performance sites and presenters have ranged from the State Museum in Trenton to the Newberry Library in Chicago, and have included numerous colleges and universities. Dishes continues to tour under the aegis of the ELC—the only theatre company in the country dedicated to reviving American plays and other literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


         
 

Booking Information:

Michèle LaRue
201.863.6436

ruedelarue@aol.com

michelelarue.com