CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A play that highlights the history of women’s rights in West Virginia will debut Friday and Saturday at the state Culture Center in Charleston.
The West Virginia Women’s Centennial project will present the play “Failure is Impossible – West Virginia’s Struggle for Women’s Suffrage” at 7:30 p.m. both days.
Renate Pore, director of the West Virginia Women’s Suffrage Project, told MetroNews the play is based on research from original documents of the period when women organized and lobbied for the vote.
“2020 was the centennial of women winning the right to vote and we had done a lot of research and thought a play would be a great way to make the research that we did on the suffrage movement in West Virginia accessible to the public,” Pore said.
The production takes audience members back to 1848, when women demanded the right to vote at the first women’s rights conference at Seneca Falls, New York. That didn’t happen until 1920 when Congress passed the 19th amendment and states ratified it.
“It’s got music. It’s got pictures of suffrage from the time and live actors who play out the debate about women’s suffrage,” Pore explained.
Pore said women have come a long way since then.
“It’s very funny the things that were said about women like not having the strength of intellect to be active in the public sphere and vote,” she said.
As West Virginia voters get ready to cast ballots in the November election, Pore said it is timely to remember how important the vote is to our democracy and how long it took for more than half of the nation’s population to be granted this privilege.
“We’re getting ready to vote here soon and we just want to remind everybody that this is a precious right that we have struggled for,” Pore said.
The play is sponsored by the West Virginia Humanities Council, the Glotfelty Foundation, Charleston Festivall, Kanawha Valley NOW and others.
Admission at the state Culture Center is free both nights.