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American History Program in Honor of the Centennial
of the Passing of the 19th Amendment.

Victoria Bailer Alfvin
(Carrie Chapman Catt)

Victoria is honored to be playing the role of Carrie Chapman Catt, an American suffrage leader who campaigned for the 19th Amendment which was passed in 1920, giving women the right to vote. She is an active member of the Manhattan Beach Community Church Theatre Board where she is currently the Director of Advertising. Victoria has been in many Community Theatre productions. Some of her favorite roles are: April in Stephen Sondheim’s Company, Elvira in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Grace in William Inge’s Bus Stop, and Virginia Poe in Steven Norris’s An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe. She hopes the Torrance Woman’s Club enjoys this peek into history in this unique Zoom presentation.

Adrienne Marie Fairley
(Ida B. Wells)

Adrienne is very excited to be a part of this production! She was recently seen in the production of Lewis Latimer: Black Inventor written and directed by Steve Norris and put on by the Arts Council of Torrance. She has also been in a number of TAP (The Aerospace Players) shows over the years, including A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, Seussical, and Mary Poppins. When not on stage, Adrienne runs her own $5 Jewelry business Soulful Bling Boutique, which can be found here https://soulfulbling.commentsold.com. She wants to thank her mom and aunt for always supporting her.

Rhonda Yeager-Hutchinson
(Alice Paul)

I began my love of theatre in South Texas, beginning with the role of Peter the Goat Herder in Heidi, graduating, in my later years to Eve in The Apple Tree to Margaret Mead in Hair. Time passes, and I find myself in Southern California, portraying Brook/Vicki in Noises Off to discovering Manhattan Beach Community Church and the awesome theatre group from within. SO MUCH TALENT in every aspect of theatre terminology.

American Suffragettes

The Arts Council of Torrance (ACT) is proud to present this American History program in honor of the Centennial of the passing of the 19th Amendment. We celebrate women's suffrage and their hard fight to win the right to vote. We offer to the Torrance Woman’s Club a story of three pioneering women who struggled, fought, and persevered against entrenched social norms and finally were victorious.

Each state in the Union had its own voting laws; an evolving patchwork. We will trace the path of ratification of the 19th Amendment through several contested states until we reach Tennessee, the 36th necessary vote for ratification. The Suffragists pulled, pushed and clawed their issues before the Tennessean legislature for an all or nothing vote using compassion and persuasion for social justice to win the day.

We present three Suffragist leaders at odds with each other and working apart using new tactics to form a winning strategy to persuade a resistant President Woodrow Wilson to embrace their cause.

Ida B. Wells was an African-American woman and civil rights advocate, journalist, suffragette, and anti-lynching crusader.

Carrie Catt, the President of the largest women's suffrage organization, the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), turned her members into an army of effective lobbyists. Thousands of women’s clubs owe their existence to her efforts. She believed in the mechanism of government but was growing impatient after fighting the cause for many years. Her tactic was persuasion and being helpful to the President and his political programs, negotiating with him and the Congress. She was a Quaker and a leader in the peace movement before America joined WWI.

Alice Paul was a young idealist and more impatient and radical than the others. Also a Quaker believing all people are equal, she stood on the streets and spoke. She chained herself to the White House fence and was jailed and tortured. She also published The Suffragette magazine. She became the leader of the National Women's Party (NWP)

Together, all three women and many others turned a Suffrage-resistant President Wilson into an advocate of women's rights, endorsing it as a plank in the Democratic party platform. This all happened amid a war in Europe, the Spanish flu pandemic, and Prohibition.

Steve and Susan Norris
Authors

The Arts Council of Torrance Poetry Project

Community Arts Events

In light of the recent governmental closures due to COVID-19, please be sure to check with individual arts groups for exhibit/performance information.