The Fight for Education — Then & Now
Jessica Swale’s feminist play ‘Blue Stockings’ brings the history of the women’s rights movement to Muhlenberg Theatre & DanceBy: Emma McKinley ’25 Thursday, February 13, 2025 04:54 PM
Blue Stockings may be set in 1896 at Cambridge University, but Jessica Swale’s historical drama offers a narrative that is deeply connected to the present.
“A story like this is cyclical,” says director Dana Iannuzzi ’03. “We think this is so far removed from the time we’re living in, but the fact of the matter is that educating women seems to be a scary concept.”
Blue Stockings comes to Muhlenberg College this spring, running Feb. 27 through March 2 in the Dorothy Hess Baker Theatre. The play tells the story of four undergraduate women studying at Girton College — the first women’s college at Cambridge — and campaigning for the right to receive their degrees upon graduation. “Generally in Victorian England, it was thought that educational places were the man’s sphere, and that the home was the women’s,” says dramaturg Dan Gullick ’26. “Women were breaking these spheres whenever they were allowed into educational places at all.”
Women began attending Muhlenberg in 1957, and Iannuzzi — herself a 2003 alum — is grateful to the women who came before her. “We stand on other people’s shoulders to get to where we want,” she says. Muhlenberg alumni are invited to discuss the play with Iannuzzi at an informal Alumni Reception in the Baker Theatre lobby, following the 8 p.m. performance on Saturday, March 1.
Abigail Boudreau ’26 plays Tess, one of the four boundary-breaking young women fighting for the right to an education. “She has this real burning need to prove herself to the world and prove that she’s not limited by her gender, she’s empowered by it,” Boudreau says. “She is so much more than her gender dictates.”
The world of Blue Stockings also encompasses the teachers who encourage (or discourage) them, and the male students at the neighboring school, Cambridge’s Trinity College. Charlotte Alexander ’25 plays Miss Blake, one of the female teachers at Girton College who is a strong advocate for these women. “Miss Blake sees the girls for what they can be, and pushes them to be brighter students,” Alexander says.
Samuel Beatty ’28 plays Ralph, a love interest of Tess’s and a young man attending Trinity. Beatty explains that while some of the young men of that time might have wanted to support the fight for women’s education, they were pressured into silence. Openly supporting opportunities for women could hurt a man’s academic career. “Ralph is not opposed to the actual movement of education for women,” Beatty says. “He just has a lot of expectations from his father and the people around him.”
Assistant director Dylan Sheppard ’25 explains that, despite being rooted in history more than a century ago, the characters will feel deeply familiar to audiences. “There’s a lot of human connection depicted in this play that remains today,” Sheppard says. “Young people being awkward, that’s a constant.”
During the rehearsal process, the company and creative team also got to meet some of the first women to graduate from Muhlenberg College. Muhlenberg became co-educational in 1957, a fact that is featured on a lobby display that dramaturg Dan Gullick is creating. The display can be seen during performances of Blue Stockings and will be a global timeline of women’s education, dating back to the 1600s, when the first woman received her doctorate, to the present.
“We’re at an educational place, so sometimes education is something we take for granted,” Gullick says. “It is a privilege that we have, and seeing the fight for that privilege on stage makes you appreciate it a little bit more.”
The fight for education isn’t just relegated to 1896 Cambridge: it’s ongoing across the world even today. “This isn’t just the women of Blue Stockings’s story,” Iannuzzi says. “There are still young girls and young boys who don’t get to go to school.”
Boudreau says that, despite this educational inequality, Blue Stockings leaves the audience with a message of hope. “Change is something that can be really frustratingly slow in coming,” she says. “But the most important thing is that you continue to fight for it.”
Blue Stockings runs Feb. 27 through Mar. 2 in the Baker Theatre, in the Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance at Muhlenberg College. Showtimes are Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. Public tickets are $15. Youth tickets and tickets for LVAIC students, faculty and staff are $8. Tickets and information are available at muhlenberg.edu/seeashow or 484-664-3333.
About the Muhlenberg College Theatre & Dance Department
Muhlenberg offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in theatre and dance. The Princeton Review ranked Muhlenberg’s theatre program in the top twelve in the nation for eight years in a row, and Fiske Guide to Colleges lists both the theatre and dance programs among the top small college programs in the United States. Muhlenberg is one of only eight colleges to be listed in Fiske for both theatre and dance.
About Muhlenberg College
Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg is a highly selective, private liberal arts college offering baccalaureate and graduate programs. With an enrollment of nearly 2,000 students, Muhlenberg College is dedicated to shaping creative, compassionate, collaborative leaders through rigorous academic programs in the arts, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences; selected preprofessional programs, including accounting, business, education and public health; and progressive workforce-focused post-baccalaureate certificates and master’s degrees. Located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, approximately 90 miles west of New York City, Muhlenberg is a member of the Centennial Conference, competing in 23 varsity sports. Muhlenberg is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
