Previews: Powerstories Theatre and The Studio's THE WASH at The Studio

The washtubs are always full first, before anyone says the word that changes everything. That's where The Wash begins, in a cramped, steaming room in Atlanta in 1881, six women elbow to elbow, hands cracked from lye and hot water, listening to each other complain, laugh, and slowly talk themselves into something bigger than any of them expected.

Kelundra Smith's play runs October 1 to 11 at The Studio in St. Pete, the second co-production between Powerstories Theatre and The Studio, following last season's sold-out run of Cadillac Crew.

The history behind it is almost too tidy to be true: a handful of Black laundresses decided their labor was worth more than they were being paid, said so out loud, and watched the idea spread until roughly 3,000 women, Black and White, had joined them in what became the first successful interracial organized labor strike of the post-Civil War era. The Wash doesn't try to tell that whole sweep of history. It stays put in one room and lets the strike arrive the way it actually did, as a conversation nobody planned to have.

Andresia Moseley's Anna is the one who finally says it, not as a declaration, but almost by accident, the way people say the thing they've been circling for weeks. Jemier Jenkins's Jeanie has opinions about everything and is annoyingly, reliably right. Jada Griffin's Thomasine is doing the harder math of what it costs to stay in a marriage versus what it costs to leave one. Marjorie Joseph's Charity is new enough to marriage, and to this work, to still think things might turn out fair. Nadine Young's Jewel is carrying a secret that has nothing to do with wages and everything to do with risk. Holly Marie Weber's Mozelle is the one still deciding if any of this is actually her fight. None of them signed up to be part of a movement. They just wanted what they'd earned.

Director and The Studio Artistic Director Erica Sutherlin says, "These women weren't trying to make history. They were trying to get paid. What Kelundra Smith understands is that organizing doesn't begin with a speech. It begins with a room, and the women in it who trust each other. This play is set over a washtub in 1881 and it will feel like a conversation you had last week. It is also genuinely funny, which people don't expect. Partnering with Powerstories again means we get to build that room together and bring two audiences into it who might not otherwise share a night of theatre."

That last part is the real engine behind this production. Sutherlin has spent the season programming stories that ask an audience to lean in close to something true, and Powerstories has built its entire mission around the same concept. The Wash is where those two missions overlap, and it's the centerpiece of Powerstories’ 2026 Greater Good season, its first under new Executive Artistic Director Clareann Despain.

Despain says, "For twenty-five years Powerstories has existed to put women's true stories in front of an audience, and this one has been waiting a long time for its turn. The washerwomen of 1881 are exactly the kind of women we were built to make room for. Ordinary, unrecorded, and braver than anyone gave them credit for. Erica and The Studio are the right partners for it. What we can do together across the bay is bigger than what either of us could do alone, and audiences on both sides are the ones who benefit."