Welcome To Blue Stockings

Our names are Abby Caldwell and Anna Grace Howard. Abby is the Assistant Director and Anna Grace is the Lead Research Assistant of the University Players production of ‘Blue Stockings.’ As two young women studying at a university, it is impossible to work on a play dealing with women’s right to education without acknowledging how incredibly far we have come in some ways. And on the other hand, how little we’ve changed in others. It is sad to see how some things are still paralleled to events occurring 110 years later.

Jessica Swale’s ‘Blue Stockings’ is set at Girton College, Cambridge, the first women’s college in Britain. Despite studying the exact same curriculum as their male peers, these extraordinary young women finished their programs without degrees. The play follows four young women studying in the year leading up the 1897 senate vote on women’s right to graduation.

The late Victorian era was a time of tremendous social and political change with the First Wave Feminism and many advancements in science, medicine and technology following the beginning of the industrial revolution. This dynamic time period provides a rich backdrop to Blue Stockings much of which will be explored in further blog entries.

A few blog entries will be posted in the next two week leading up to the opening night of the University Players production of ‘Blue Stockings.’ Entries will include cast members posting as their characters in the year 1896 as well as crew entries that describe their job during the rehearsal process. Opening night is February 3rd, 2017. More information can be found at the University Players Website. Hope to see you there!