Blackpool based Willow Theatre Productions returns to the Blackpool Grand Theatre Studio this week with their latest production, Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale.
Blue Stockings is the first full-length play by Jessica Swale, written in 2012, and is the story of four young women fighting for education and self-determination against the larger backdrop of women’s suffrage.
“They say you don’t have the capacity to be scholars. So read everything. Learn everything. Know the philosophers, and then think for yourselves.”
It is 1896 at Girton College, Cambridge, the first residential college in Britain to admit women. The Girton girls study ferociously and match their male peers grade for grade. Yet, when the men graduate, the women leave with nothing but the stigma of being a ‘blue stocking’ – an unnatural, educated woman. They are denied degrees and go home unqualified and unmarriageable.
Tess Moffat and her fellow first years are determined to win the right to graduate. But little do they anticipate the hurdles in their way: the distractions of love, the cruelty of the class divide or the strength of the opposition, who will do anything to stop them.
The play follows them over one tumultuous academic year, in their fight to change the future of education. Blue Stockings is the engaging, spirited and shocking story of four young women fighting for their right to a university education in a world that assumed women belonged at home.
First produced professionally at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2013, and a sell out success, it is now regularly performed throughout the UK and beyond, and widely studied by GCSE drama students.
Willow Theatre Productions is dedicated to putting women’s stories at the forefront, using works by female playwrights with strong female protagonists. They endeavour to create intimate, powerful and thought-provoking pieces. Previous shows include Be My Baby and The Diary of Anne Frank.
The printed play of Blue Stockings includes a dedication to female education activist and Nobel laureate, Malala Yousafzai. After each performance there will be a collection for the Malala Fund in aid of women’s education around the world.
Blue Stockings is at the Grand Theatre Studio from Thursday 14th-Saturday 16th November nightly at 7:30pm with a Saturday matinée at 2:30pm.
There are limited tickets available here.
For more information about local company Willow Theatre Productions:
Facebook: Willow Theatre Productions
Instagram: @willow_theatre
Website: www.coucouclasses.co.uk/willow-theatre-productions
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