Painted Bride Stages IF SHE STOOD, Now thru 5/5

This year the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts began with the question, "If you had a time machine, where would you go?" In answer to that, the Painted Bride is taking audiences back to December 5, 1833 and right into the heart of the founding of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

This creation, If She Stood, will run for six performances - tonight, April 26, 2013 at 8pm, Saturday, April 27, 2013 at 8pm, and Sunday, April 28, 2013 at 3pm, followed by Friday, May 3, 2013 at 8pm, Saturday, May 4, 2013 at 8pm and Sunday May 5, 2013 at 3pm, at the Painted Bride Art Center during the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.

Tickets are $25 in advance/$30 day of show. More information can be found at www.paintedbride.org, and www.pifa.org. More information about the show and the Place Philadelphia Project can be found at www.placephiladelphia.com.

A year ago, the Painted Bride Art Center introduced audiences to the artistic talents of noted playwright/director/actor Ain Gordon and announced an 18 month residency with Gordon and Philadelphia artist Nadine Patterson. The residency was to unearth an overlooked or little known story from the city's history. The challenge was to find something in a city where history is an industry and stories abound. The artists have worked with several organizations across the city and have found inspiration in the women reformers who lived in the city from the early to mid-1800s.

Gordon and Patterson have traversed the city in search of past lives. Gordon is interested in histories that leave scant tangible evidence. Touring the African American Museum of Philadelphia and considering Philadelphia's strong historical African American presence, the pair were led to the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, which in 1833, included free African American Women. They were women, who in the mid-1800s in Philadelphia, struck out against the prevailing codes of thought, conduct, and behavior to seek change through personal revolution.

The artists worked with historical organizations to get permissions to use archival items from that time period. The have explored the archives at The Library Company of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Historical Society, and the Blockson Collection at Temple University. The pair discussed this time period and the Women's Anti-Slavery Society with history scholars at Penn State and at Temple. One point in known history where virtually all of these women gathered was the burning of Pennsylvania Hall in May of 1838. The hall was built as a meeting place of the minds, where men and women of all races could meet and share ideas. It was a place where women were given the freedom to stand at the podium and speak up. Four days after it opened, it was burned down by an angry mob. These women were a precursor to the abolitionist movement and were talking about women's issues before suffrage and the women's rights movements.

In If She Stood, audiences meet Angelina Weld Grimké, Sarah Grimké, Sarah Pugh, and Sara Mapps Douglass and others. Theatregoers will enter a 19th century Quaker meeting house and experience the moment these female reformers chose to move. In this World Premiere theatrical experience, audiences step into the minds of a small collective of historically-overlooked women who formed the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Collectively they stood to abolish slavery, were the first to initiate the women's rights movement and set out to right a host of societal wrongs. This multi-racial collective helped shape the city of Philadelphia and society as we know it today.

The cast includes Melanye Finister, Janis Dardaris and Stacey Sargeant. Gordon is set to cast one more actress. Gordon is working with Lighting Designer Nick Ryckert who works with Gordon regularly.

About the Women Portrayed in the Play
Sarah Mapps Douglass was an outspoken abolitionist, educator, public lecturer, writer, and crusader for equal rights. Both her parents were prominent African American abolitionists. Sarah grew up deeply rooted within the abolitionist movement and participated in many areas. With her mother, Sarah helped establish the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and she served as the manager, recording secretary and as its librarian. Her contributions and commitment to African American education were vast, teaching both children and adults. In 1820, at the age of 16, Sarah opened a school for black children. In 1853, Sarah headed the preparatory department at the Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth, and for over 25 years, she was a teacher and administrator at the school. Sarah publicly and openly expressed her opposition to the segregation African Americans faced in the Quaker meeting houses of worship that she attended. The Douglass family forged social and political networks with both black and white abolitionists. She maintained a long and close friendship with Sarah and Angelina Grimké, daughters of South Carolina slaveholders. The Grimkés joined the abolitionist movement within the Philadelphia Quaker community in the early 1830s. In her letters to Sarah Grimké, Douglass revealed the pain of encountering race prejudice among fellow Quakers. The Arch Street meeting, for example, required blacks and whites to sit on separate benches. Although her mother continued to attend the Arch Street Meeting, Sarah eventually stopped attending.

Sarah Pugh, an educator who founded her own school, joined the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1838 and served as its presiding officer. She was also a member of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. At the first meeting of the PFASS at Pennsylvania Hall, a pro-slavery mob burned the building. The convention continued in Pugh's classroom, and the group pledged to expand the relationship between whites and African-Americans. After the Civil War, Sarah Pugh helped to establish schools for freed slaves, as well as continuing her work for women's rights as a member of the Pennsylvania Women's Suffrage Association.

Sarah Moore Grimké, along with her sister Angelina, is one of the most notable figures in the founding of PFASS after Lucretia Mott. Sarah was the author of the first developed public argument for women's equality and she strived to rid the United States of slavery, Christian churches which had become "unchristian," and prejudice against African-Americans and women. Her writings gave suffrage workers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott several arguments and ideas that they would need to help end slavery and begin the women's suffrage movement.

Sarah Grimke is categorized as not only an abolitionist but also a feminist because she challenged the church that touted their inclusiveness then denied her. Angelina's impassioned positions about women's rights were made known through her famous speeches made to mixed gender audiences. Her stances were considered so radical for the time that she was condemned by clergymen. It was this condemnation that led to the sisters' greater involvement in advocating for women's rights alongside of their work for Abolition. It is interesting to note that the Grimkés came from a slaveholding family, and they used their firsthand witness accounts to bolster their impassioned speeches denouncing the institution.

Furthermore, Angelina's speeches to "promiscuous" (mixed gender) audiences were so scandalous in the minds of pro-slavery advocates that it is widely believed that her appearance as a speaker at Pennsylvania Hall in 1838 is what led to the pro-slavery riots that resulted in the burning of the structure. Itinerant speaking for abolition was a very dangerous occupation for both women and men. Local audiences were often hostile, sometimes violent.

Angelina Weld Grimké, the great niece of the Angelina Grimké, was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was an African-American journalist, teacher, playwright and poet who was part of the Harlem Renaissance; she was one of the first African-American women to have a play performed. Grimké's theatrical work Rachel was also one of the first plays to protest lynching and racial violence. Her father, Archibald, was the second African American to graduate from Harvard Law School.

About Ain Gordon and Nadine Patterson
Gordon has built his career on work that focuses on marginalized/forgotten history and the invisible players who inhabit that space. His work carries a particular blend of historical fact/imagined truth. The Bride began conversations with Gordon in 2010 when he was part of the cast of Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell. The Bride realized they wanted to collaborate and began discussions. The Bride pairEd Gordon with Patterson, after he brought up how he likes to partner with a local artist, who centers his or her practice in another medium. Patterson is an independent producer of documentary, experimental and narrative film. She has experience in multicultural programming and works with artists and community organizations in using media to disseminate information and raise awareness about critical issues.

About Ain Gordon
Gordon began writing and directing for the stage in 1985. He emerged on to the downtown dance/performance scene with four consecutive seasons at Dance Theater Workshop plus performances at Movement Research, The Poetry Project, and Performance Space 122. By 1990, Gordon was recognized in the inaugural round of the NEA's "New Forms" initiative - funding for artists whose work defied clear classification. In 1991, Gordon entered a multi-project relationship with Soho Rep that encompassed five productions and workshops. In 1992, he began collaborating with his father, highly praised playwright and director, David Gordon, on The Family Business. It was then he became Co-Director of the Pick Up Performance Company (founded by his father in 1971 and incorporated in 1978).

Gordon won his first Obie Award as one of the creators of The Family Business. He won his second Obie Award for his play Wally's Ghost. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting. Gordon won his third Obie for his performance in the Off-Broadway production of Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell. Other current projects include a new play to premiere at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (VT) and the BAM Next Wave Festival, and a collaboration with S? Percussion premiering at the Walker Art Center (MN) and BAM Next Wave.

About Nadine Patterson
Nadine Patterson is an award winning independent producer/director. She has worked with the Painted Bride Art Center since 1994. Her training in theatre, immersion in documentary film, and intense study of world cinema enable her to create works grounded in historical contexts, with a unique visual palette. Over the past 20 years she has taught video production at West Chester University, Temple University, Arcadia University, Drexel University, University of Western Sydney (Australia) and Scribe Video Center. She was the only filmmaker selected for The Biennial 2000 at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Some of her films include : "I Used to Teach English", Winner Gold Apple Award 1994 National Educational Film/Video Festival, Oakland, CA; "Anna Russell Jones: Praisesong for a Pioneering Spirit", Best Documentary 1993 African American Women in the Arts Film/Video Competition, Chicago, IL; "Moving with the Dreaming", Prized Pieces award from the National Black Programming Consortium in 1997; "Todo El Mundo Dance!" selected for the 2001-2002 Council on Foundations Film and Video Festival. Other notable works include: "Shizue", screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1991; and "Release" shown at the Constellation Change Dance Film Festival of London in 2006. She recently completed her second masters at the London Film School in 2005. She received funding for her film work from The Philadelphia Foundation, The National Black Programming Consortium, The Bartol Foundation, and The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She received a 2010 fellowship in the arts from the Independence Foundation. In 2011 along with Ain Gordon and the Painted Bride Art Center she received a grant from the Pew Philadelphia Theater Initiative for the creation of a new work about forgotten historical places in Philadelphia. For the third year Ms. Patterson curates the Trenton International Film Festival in November 2012. She completed two milestones in 2011: she published her first book Always Emerging and completed principal photography for her first feature film as director Tango Macbeth.

This two-year project has been supported by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage though the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative.

The Painted Bride Art Center collaborates with emerging and established artists to create, produce and present innovative work that affirms the intrinsic value of all cultures and celebrates the transformative power of the arts. Through performances and exhibitions, education and outreach, the Bride creates a forum for engagement centered on contemporary social issues.

Founded in 1969 by a group of visual artists who had recently graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, the Painted Bride Art Center is a presenting arts organization located in Old City, Philadelphia. The Bride is part of the Alternative Art Space movement, which is a small genre of cultural organization in America that grew from a movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This movement sought to establish organizations where artists had greater control over the presentation of their work and were able to present the work of the underrepresented in commercial or larger established institutions such as women, people of color, gay and lesbian artists and the disabled. The Bride has evolved into an innovative, internationally recognized, artist-centered, multi-disciplinary institution.

Photo courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.