IM 2009 -10 Speakers Barbara Callander and Toni Douglass

Barbara Callander and Toni Douglass each bring over 25 years of professional acting experience to their performances. Douglass, an established director, playwright and teacher, is the only playwright in Washington history whose work has been included as an official part of a state inaugural; May's Vote was presented in 1989 at the Centennial Inaugural Ceremonies in Olympia at the invitation of the Secretary of State. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Douglass has acted in theatres throughout the western United States and is currently on the faculty of the Seattle Children's Theatre Drama School. Callander, a graduate of Oberlin College, has appeared with theatres nationwide. She has also taught classes and workshops for arts organizations and worked extensively as an arts administrator. In 1995, she organized a multi-cultural festival for the Seattle celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, for which she received an award from the National Women's History Project. Together, Barbara Callander and Toni Douglass have been touring original plays about women's history for over a decade.

May's Vote
A century ago, prim and proper Emma Smith DeVoe and outrageous, flamboyant May Arkwright Hutton worked side by side - but seldom eye to eye - to win the vote for women in Washington State. DeVoe, based in western Washington, was a professional suffrage organizer trained by Susan B. Anthony. She believed that in order to win the vote, it was imperative to approach men in a ladylike manner: "You have to persuade them, convince them, argue their resistance down." Hutton, rags-to-riches Spokane millionaire and ex-mining camp cook, could not have disagreed more: "No, you gotta charm the pants off 'em. You don't focus on the issue; you distract 'em from it!" May's Vote presents Emma and May from their respective childhoods through the noisy public struggle that ended with success in 1910 and demonstrates that we do not always have to agree in order to achieve a common goal.

Winners
Radical. Unladylike. Shameful. Outrageous. Unsexed. Any woman who would actually come forward and add her voice to the scandalous clamour for equal treatment under the law... shocking! Demanding the right to vote! Extremists, the lot of them! In tribute to the lot of them, Winners presents dramatic portraits of an assortment of these pioneers, drawing from their published writings, scribbled notes, speeches, diary entries and interviews. Some enjoy icon status today. Others remain almost entirely unknown, while several worked in Washington State, including an ancestor of Barbara's. Time has confirmed their places in the winners' circle of history, regardless of whether or not they lived to see victory in their own day. Winners provides an excellent opportunity for discussion about how these "extremists" helped to make today possible, and how it is that each generation builds on the progress - the wins - of previous ones in our shared journey towards equality for all.