OLLI at BCC and many local orgs are sponsors for this presentation of the one-woman show:
Representation and How to Get It
Don’t miss the acclaimed theatrical production about suffragist Julia Ward Howe!
Joyce Van Dyke — Producer/Playwright
Judy Braha — Director
Starring Elaine Vaan Hogue
Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 3:00 pm
UU Meeting of South Berkshire, 1089 Main St, Housatonic, MA
No registration is required.
What: 45-minute play, followed by a moderated Community Conversation
Why: To challenge us to vote on November 3rd and to protect democracy.
Free & Open to the Public
All are welcome.
Housatonic— On Saturday, October 10th at 3 p.m., OLLI at BCC and Great Barrington Public Theatre present “Representation and How to Get It,” a one-woman show about suffragist Julia Ward Howe, an American trailblazer for women’s rights.
“Representation and How to Get It” dramatizes the personal and political struggle of the visionary and activist Julia Ward Howe, suffragist, abolitionist, and author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
One of the most famous American women of her day, the writer Julia Ward Howe became a charismatic public speaker at a time when women were vilified for speaking out. Her creativity and tenacity were prodigious: speaking, writing, and organizing for women’s rights, founding the American Woman Suffrage Association, and founding and presiding over numerous women’s clubs and philanthropic organizations.
A Unitarian, she founded an organization to support women preachers like herself. She invented Mother’s Day (she had six children) as an international women’s call for world peace. She organized a “Woman’s Tea Party” for several thousand people on the centennial of the Boston Tea Party at Boston’s Faneuil Hall to protest the tyranny of 100 years of taxation without representation, for American women. For over 40 years, she made an annual trip to the Massachusetts State House to argue before the legislators that women should have the right to vote, saying, “No man can have more at stake in the community than I have.” When she died in 1910, 4,000 people filled Boston’s Symphony Hall for her memorial service.
Today the U.S. faces another election in which voting rights are being challenged. Actor Elaine Vaan Hogue, who plays the role of Julia, says, “This play is a call to action. Julia’s words are so inspiring. They resonate powerfully with our political situation today.”
Written by playwright Joyce Van Dyke and developed collaboratively with Vaan Hogue and director Judy Braha, the mission of this production is to lift the visionary politics of Julia Ward Howe into our own time. As such, the 45-minute play will be followed by a moderated community conversation with Vaan Hogue as well as State House Rep. Leigh Davis (3rd District, representing 18 Berkshire towns), American historian and Brooklyn College Professor and a League of Women Voters second-generation activist Emerita Barbara Winslow, led by panel moderator Paula Langton, Professor Emerita at Boston University College of Fine Arts and current board member of the Becket Arts Center.
Performances run from Saturday, October 10th at 3 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire, located at 1089 Main Street in Housatonic. No registration is required and admission is free. All are welcome. More information can be found online.
Sponsors: UU Meeting of South Berkshire · League of Women Voters · Berkshire Brigades · Dalton Dems Town Committee
Community Partners: Great Barrington Public Theater · OLLI at Berkshire Community College
Accessibility & Parking: Accessible parking with attendants in the lot behind the UU building. Additional street parking available. Drop-off available at the building.
Ramp access at the side door off the parking lot; building and restrooms are accessible. No ADA-compliant doors, but attendants will be on hand.
Questions? Email Tommie at tommielou9@aol.com
