Gloria Steinem has a legacy befitting a woman who helped change American history. Given her impact, the feminist icon’s life is one that deserves reexamination, including the artistic kind.
Merced College Performing Arts students will offer that opportunity during their spring production of the Emily Mann-penned play entitled “Gloria: A Life.”
The production wrestles with the themes surrounding the gender equality movement through the experiences of Steinem and her peers, colleagues and detractors from the 1960s through to today.
Director and Merced College Theater Professor Lauren McCue-Bryx said the themes remain relevant in 2024.
“Theatre at its best gets you thinking and talking long after seeing the show, or even gets you to reflect on social and political issues,” McCue-Bryx said. “We’ve never worked on a production that’s so focused on women, on feminism, and then had a chance to dialogue about that.”
Opening night is March 15 at 7:30 p.m. There are seven performances directed by McCue-Bryx, with stage and lighting design by Technical Director Chad Phillips. Students developed all of the projections, music and costumes for the show. The final performance is March 24, one day before Steinem’s 90th birthday.
Alyssa Thorp, a sophomore theater major, has the task of embodying Steinem’s reserved intelligence while speaking truth to power. Her biggest challenges? Covering the entire performance space and learning Steinem’s mannerisms.
“I’ve watched so many documentaries and interviews to figure out the way she speaks,” Thorp said. “She’s this amazing woman doing amazing things with such a unique way of presenting herself. … She said incredible things to huge crowds, because no one else was doing it and she wanted people to listen.”
While the 90-minute play is structured around Steinem’s career as an activist, it also uses Steinem to highlight the contributions of other leaders from second-wave feminism.
Steinem herself credits Black women for teaching her about feminism and for pushing the movement forward. The play amplifies the voices of Black leaders like Florynce Kennedy, Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Coretta Scott King.
Sophomore theater major Jordyn Allison plays Pitman Hughes and Scott King.
“We’re trying to get the essence of each character into the production, and really understanding all of the things behind the words we’re saying—the actions, the marches, the speeches,” Allison said. “Those events actually happened, and it was a big time for the women’s movement.”
Sophomore theater major Sarah M. Pritsch, in contrast, plays some of the women and unnamed men in the play, like a sleazy doctor and a truck driver. Many of the actors in the all-female ensemble play multiple roles, including male characters—a deliberate choice so as not to retraumatize anyone who has experienced sexual harassment or gender violence.
“Without an ensemble, it’s not a show,” said Pritsch, a Los Banos native. “I love playing roles that make people so angry they have to talk about it. I am a doctor, who examines all of the Playboy Bunnies. He’s a bad person. He bothers people. He bothers me. It’s a challenge to embody that. But then I get to play other characters who are empowered. It’s awesome.”
Freshman theater major Hannah Prewett is in charge of wrangling the biggest physical character of the production—the stage.
The play is staged in the round. That means actors perform inside a circle surrounded by the audience.
“Just the basic choreography of all of the tech is completely flipped around,” said Prewett, the stage manager. “The show doesn’t have a traditional backstage. We have to do all of the costume changes in front of the audience, so we’ve built in hidden compartments to all of the set pieces. But we do the play in the round to communicate directly with the audience.”
Talking circles were a critical element of second-wave feminism. Within them, women could safely share their trauma from being sexualized, assaulted, ignored or undervalued. Prewett said the stage creates another talking circle, in real time, with the audience. The staging is so important that whoever buys the rights to perform the play must stage it in the round.
Participating in the production has already educated the people involved.
“I didn’t know much about this story when we began,” Thorp said. “Being able to share it with this community is so exciting. It’s something we need to talk about more.”
Added Allison, “It’s empowering. It’s history, but also relevant now. I feel the whole production goes beyond entertainment. You’re doing something with your art. You’re helping people know it’s okay to talk about uncomfortable topics.”
Pritsch appreciates that this process has been difficult.
“But I am also enjoying talking about issues that people don’t really want to talk about,” she said. “It can bring an open-mindedness to our community and make all of us more receptive to other thoughts and ideas.”
Now in her fourth year leading the department, McCue-Bryx—who wrote about gender-based violence in women-authored plays for her doctoral dissertation—felt strongly about showing a provocative piece about a provocative woman.
“It’s important to introduce students and audience members to new, contemporary plays, such as this one, in addition to familiar plays,” she said. “Mann is a fantastic playwright, and she’s created this show about the key figures in the second-wave feminist movement and the work they did to build gender equality.
“This is such an important play with pedagogical value for students. … It is timely, but I also think, when are these sociopolitical issues not timely?”