Philly Women's Theatre Festival Is Amplifying Untold Voices In Voting

Philadelphia Women's Theatre Festival (PWTF) opens its 6th annual festival, Untold Voices in Voting, on August 6, 2020 with Teresa Miller's I Woke Up This Morning with My Mind.

Miller's play is a one-woman show about the hours leading up the night Fannie Lou Hamer spent in jail after her bus trip to Mississippi teaching at a voter registration class. The virtual festival, which takes place over Zoom, celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment by amplifying untold voices, particularly women+ of color, whose stories were left out of the narrative of the suffrage movement.

Although women were granted the right to vote in 1920, black women were deprived of this right until the Voting Acts Right of 1965. The story of women's suffrage is often told through the white, upper-middle class lens of Abigail Adams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Very little is known about the universal fight of women's suffrage led by BIPOC suffragists. Untold Voices in Voting celebrates the voices of Fanny Lou Hammer, Ida B. Wells, Angeline Welde Grimke and other women of color who fought relentlessly against injustice.

"This year, as PWTF celebrates 100 years since the ratification of the 19th amendment, we want to unpack the full story of women's suffrage in America -- what did it accomplish, what did it fail to accomplish, and what work is still to be done?" said Artistic Director, Polly Edelstein.

Audiences will experience the Untold Voices in Voting festival as an intersectional celebration of women's rights activists -- without leaving home! To commemorate this milestone of democracy and to further explore its relevance to equal rights issues of today, PWTF has partnered with Simpatico Theatre-supported Jouska PlayWorks, an assembly of playwrights of color who are committed to creating works for the stage that shift perceptions and inaccuracies about the African Diaspora by bringing to the foreground stories and experiences that have too long been untold. This partnership helps to shed light on BIPOC suffragist and discuss the dominate and lost feminist narratives of the movement.

Festival events will take place August 6 - September 24. Festival Pass holders and single ticket buyers will have access to a post-show Q&A after each of the five virtual play readings. Single tickets are Pay-What-You-Decide. Check out discounted, full price and Pay-It-Forward ticket options! Philadelphia Women's Theatre festival is proud to present the following festival Lineup:

August 6th at 8:00 pm: I Woke up This Morning with My Mind by Teresa Miller

August 9th at 3:00 pm: Ain't (Y)our History by Rachel Atkins

August 20th at 8:00 pm: America's Favorite Feminist by Keenya Jackson

September 10th at 8:00 pm: An Evening of One Acts
Lowndes by Megan Schumacher
Walk the Line by Ang Bey
Mrs. Satan and the Nasty Woman by Alice Eve Cohen
Celebration Bread by Julie Zaffarano
September 24th at 8:00 pm: In Defense of Ourselves by Nikki Brake-Sillá

Tickets and festival information can be found online: https://www.phillywomenstheatrefest.org/2020-festival