On Her Shoulders In Association with The New School for Drama Presents HOW FAR HAVE WE COME?

On Her Shoulders is pleased to present a staged reading of two Dualogues highlighting the struggle to define and enlighten the "New Woman" directed by Melody Brooks, on Wednesday, December 7, 2016. Doors open at 6:30pm. The Play in Context, which situates the script in its historical time and place, kicks off the evening at 6:45pm. After the Dualogues, we invite our guests to remain for some provocative Dialogue with wine and snacks! Running time for the entire event is approximately 75 minutes. Admission is by Donation. The performance is at New Perspectives Studio, 458 West 37 Street (@ 10th Avenue). R.S.V.P. to newper37@gmail.com.

HARRIET LOUISA CHILDE-PEMBERTON (c1853-1922) was an English author best known for her modernized fairy tales and children's books promoting Christian ideals. Hers was a prolific output, with books, poems, plays and literary criticism published between 1873 and 1911. Shattered Nerves is part of a collection Twenty Minutes!: Drawing Room Duologues, published c1900. The volume contains seven duologues and two monologues, all serving to address some aspect of modern life that Ms. Childe-Pemberton feels need correcting. Yet even with her moralizing, she offers a surprising view of modern womanhood, particularly with the inclusion of a female MD offering common sense "therapy" in Shattered Nerves.

EVELYN GLOVER (1874-c1941) began her writing career by contributing several comic, polemical sketches to the suffrage cause in England. These one-act plays seek to demonstrate the relevance of the suffrage movement to working-class women. During the First World War one of her short plays,A Bit of Blighty, became popular entertainment for the troops. Her only full-length drama, Time to Wake Up, was produced in 1919. She also wrote pieces for a children's program on BBC radio. Miss Appleyard's Awakening was first performed at the Rehearsal Theatre, London, on June 20, 1911. In this short play, Mrs. Crabtree visits a fellow anti-suffragist and manages, through her views that "a man is a man and a woman is a woman", to convert Miss Appleyard?but not in the way she intended!

MELODY BROOKS (Director/Dramaturg) is the Artistic Director of New Perspectives Theatre Company and director of its Women's Work LAB, which develops original short and full-length plays by 8-12 female playwrights a year. She has been producing and directing new works and the classics for more than 30 years in NYC. As one of the co-founders of 50/50 in 2020: Parity for Women Theatre Artists, she is involved in a number of programs that are working to reclaim and restore the true history of women as theatre practitioners through the centuries. Melody currently serves on the Board of the League of Professional Theatre Women, where she also co-chairs the 2017 Gilder-Goigney International Theatre Award and is a member of the Heritage Program.

ON HER SHOULDERS was founded in 2012 to present rehearsed, staged readings of plays by women from across the spectrum of time, with contemporary dramaturgs contextualizing--and in some cases adapting--them for modern audiences. The program seeks to make it impossible to deny or ignore the 1,000-year great tradition and value of women's contribution to the theatrical canon. OHS became a program of NPTC in August 2013 and is currently produced by Melissa Attebery and Melody Brooks.

NEW PERSPECTIVES THEATRE COMPANY (NPTC) is an award-winning, multi-racial company operating for the last 25 years in Midtown Manhattan and communities through NYC. The Company's mission is to develop and produce new plays and playwrights, especially women and people of color; to present classic plays in a style that addresses contemporary issues; and to extend the benefits of theatre to young people and communities in need.Our aim is not to exclude, but to cast a wider net. www.nptnyc.org

THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DRAMA: The creative home for the future of performing arts. Agile. Engaged. Innovative. Multi-disciplinary. The New School for Drama is home to a dynamic group of young directors, writers, actors, creative technologists, and award-winning faculty. With a core belief in rigorous creativity and collaborative learning, our programs embrace civic awareness across performance disciplines to create work imbued with professionalism, imagination and social context. For more information, please visit www.newschool.edu/drama

The Play in Context, the dramaturgical and scholarly presentation component to the program, is sponsored in part by the League of Professional Theatre Women, a non-profit organization promoting visibility and increasing opportunities for women in theatre since 1982. www.theatrewomen.org