WEBVTT

1
00:00:12.919 --> 00:00:15.519
Good morning, good morning, good
morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.

2
00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:19.239
It is time now for our community
connection right here on K one,

3
00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:23.440
the one you trust. And we
have many of the ladies from the League

4
00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:27.640
of Women Voters here with us here
in Bartlesville. And we just had a

5
00:00:27.719 --> 00:00:31.199
you know, the preferential election last
night. But we're not here so much

6
00:00:31.239 --> 00:00:38.759
to talk about an election. We're
talking about women and the suffrage movement here

7
00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:43.560
and a brilliant play that's going to
be taking place here and not too long

8
00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:46.119
called American Woman. And I know
you're right now you're hearing the song,

9
00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:52.439
but you know it's not going to
be like Fran Starlings is with us.

10
00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:56.439
Hey friend, how you doing today? Just fine? Now you're the program

11
00:00:56.439 --> 00:00:59.759
share tell us a little bit about
what's going on here. Well, this

12
00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:03.560
play is based on one that was
written for the centennial of suffrage, which

13
00:01:03.680 --> 00:01:10.439
was back would have been in twenty
twenty. That's right here. We were

14
00:01:10.519 --> 00:01:15.000
all set to do a two act
play with dozens of people in costume,

15
00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:19.959
and everything shut down. March is
Women's History month, and so we were

16
00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:23.799
going to do it in March,
but that's when everything shut down. We

17
00:01:23.799 --> 00:01:30.439
were very discouraged because this play had
been written by Jan Driling, our District

18
00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:34.599
Judge, and Joan Dreisker, and
they had worked really hard, done a

19
00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:40.280
lot of research. Well, League
of Women voters decided now that things have

20
00:01:40.359 --> 00:01:42.400
opened up again, it was time
to give it another try, but not

21
00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:55.359
the big two act splendiferous thing Shelby
and Sydney Bremmer worked on. It's a

22
00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:59.400
small splendid sence. Yes, it's
well still going to be splendiferous, but

23
00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.959
it's going to be a one act
reader's theater with three actors they'll to tell

24
00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:08.199
you about. And it's going to
be a week from tomorrow, March fourteen,

25
00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:14.199
Oh good, at Theater Bartlesville downtown, and it's going to be free

26
00:02:14.680 --> 00:02:19.680
with the reception afterwards. So wow, we really excited about what they're going

27
00:02:19.719 --> 00:02:23.319
to do. Now. This is
great because at Theater Bartlesville, it's very

28
00:02:23.319 --> 00:02:27.439
intimate, it's very close up,
you know, and on top of that,

29
00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:30.520
it's just really kind of a good, cool place to do things.

30
00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:35.000
So tell us a little bit about
how we got together on directing, code

31
00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:37.840
directing and maybe kind of rewriting this
a little bit, ladies. Well,

32
00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:40.599
I was involved in the very first
production that they thought they were going to

33
00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:45.360
do. I think, and my
sister and I started, you know,

34
00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:49.639
just kind of talking about what can
we do? This is great material.

35
00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:53.759
Something has to happen to her.
And Connie Lavoy, who was the president

36
00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:59.159
of the League of Women Voters,
had the same idea and she asked us

37
00:02:59.199 --> 00:03:04.680
to kind of develop this as a
as a presentation to fulfill their educational mission

38
00:03:04.719 --> 00:03:13.479
of the legal Women Voters. Shelby
did the adaptation well at that and then

39
00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:15.439
we are sort of kind of co
directors. I guess where I handle a

40
00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:21.599
lot of the producing background stuff,
and Shelby is very much the creative engine

41
00:03:22.520 --> 00:03:28.240
of the staging of this. And
we have three wonderful actors including Shelby.

42
00:03:28.599 --> 00:03:35.879
She's wearing three hats in this production
and also too many hats. Shelley Holdman

43
00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:39.199
is also going to be in the
piece, and my husband, Eric Jacob,

44
00:03:39.639 --> 00:03:45.439
and then we also have supernumeraries.
We have a group of actresses from

45
00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:52.039
Martlesville who are portraying various activists at
different times in the suffrage movement history.

46
00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:55.240
So it's a it's an exciting piece. Now, this was a little bit

47
00:03:55.240 --> 00:04:00.680
of a challenge, but you pulled
it off. And there was no doubt.

48
00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:09.199
We think you've been around you.
It was a challenge because it was

49
00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:15.199
a huge epic piece with so much
research and a fascinating tale. That's why

50
00:04:15.279 --> 00:04:21.720
I kind of subtitled it a brief
history and exciting true story of the woman

51
00:04:21.959 --> 00:04:27.519
suffragist, because you were saying before
we came in here, a lot of

52
00:04:27.560 --> 00:04:30.360
people don't have any kind of memory
of a time when women had to fight

53
00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:33.120
to get the vote. You know, we heard it from my grandparents.

54
00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:38.319
Yes, yes, and it's not
about politics, but the fact that you

55
00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:43.519
know, Nikki Haley is running and
you know, the thought that we couldn't

56
00:04:43.639 --> 00:04:47.319
vote is just very strange. So
it took a long long time. So

57
00:04:47.399 --> 00:04:53.120
I got caught up in the story, which is inherently dramatic. We've tried

58
00:04:53.120 --> 00:04:57.720
to dramatize this because we didn't want
to hit people with too much information because

59
00:04:57.720 --> 00:05:02.839
it's a lot. But I think
it'll be a brief, entertaining history,

60
00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:08.480
a lot of history people don't know
and should know. You know something,

61
00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:14.000
There's nothing wrong with putting a little
bit of entertainment into the information and making

62
00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:16.639
it stick a little bit, while
still being true to the intellectual content of

63
00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:25.319
her exactly so that that was a
nice little love formula. There you go,

64
00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:30.839
now, Frand when it comes to
this period of time in our history,

65
00:05:33.319 --> 00:05:38.480
I just remember my grandfather saying one
of them. Anyway, he said,

66
00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:41.600
she knows more about what's going on
than I do, so I'm glad

67
00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:46.199
she got the opportunity. Nice And
why is that, he says, well,

68
00:05:46.240 --> 00:05:49.519
you know, I work all the
time, and she gets a chance

69
00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:54.439
to read the paper. Long before, back then they just had newspaper and

70
00:05:54.560 --> 00:06:00.000
radio. And he said, she's
well equipped. And I thought, that's

71
00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:03.439
pretty dark nights. I never really
saw anybody that was sore over that,

72
00:06:03.720 --> 00:06:08.519
but I guess it was one of
those things where it had been going on

73
00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:13.519
so long nobody wanted to break the
cycle. I guess. I guess.

74
00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:18.439
There were a lot of phony arguments
made about how women were too emotional,

75
00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:29.120
or or well their brains were smaller. There were a lot of interesting excuses

76
00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:35.519
made. Yes, there was two
words that would just make most any woman

77
00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:41.160
in my family just jump when they
heard it. If a man ever said,

78
00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:45.839
use the terminal high strung. Oh
oh brother, no, that's good.

79
00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:53.639
He smoke coming out people's ears.
Only when we're denied the vote it

80
00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:58.600
sounds like it's more of a thoughtful
process and with a little bit of emotional

81
00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:02.120
charge attached to it. They got
it done. Historically, there was a

82
00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:05.839
lot of process. It was a
lot of hard long time, a long

83
00:07:05.879 --> 00:07:12.399
time. The first Women's Convention was
eighteen forty eight. It was something like

84
00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:16.319
sixty two years for the women to
get about. I will say this more

85
00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:20.959
than that, yeah, because you
know, yeah, yeah, that's right,

86
00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:24.399
that's right. At some point one
of my characters says, it's been

87
00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:30.680
sixty two years. It was like, well, keep going over until yeah,

88
00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.800
nineteen twenty nineteen. It lasted right
through World War One, and it

89
00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:41.800
was Woodrow Wilson's last important act in
our mind at least, was to you

90
00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:46.680
know, put that Nineteenth Amendment back
up there as something that the Congress had

91
00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:48.720
to vote on, and they did. They passed it, and then we

92
00:07:48.759 --> 00:07:54.319
had to go through the long ratification
process state by state, and it was

93
00:07:54.360 --> 00:08:01.040
a women's movement had become so national, nationalized, hundreds of thousands of women

94
00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:07.519
involved, and they made it happen. Now with the ratification that took what

95
00:08:07.560 --> 00:08:11.120
two thirds of the states, yes, yes, thirty something in the States

96
00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:18.279
had at the time forty eight in
Hawaiian in Alaska, we're just hanging out

97
00:08:18.279 --> 00:08:24.600
there being tourist attractions, you know. Even we even have a forty eight

98
00:08:24.680 --> 00:08:26.800
star flag. Yes, we did, you do? Oh my goodness,

99
00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:30.920
it's going to be part of the
dressing. I'm just going to ask we

100
00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:33.360
get to see it on stage.
It's like, we will, we will.

101
00:08:33.559 --> 00:08:35.200
This is going to be more than
that flag. Now once again,

102
00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:39.960
this is going to be on the
fourteenth, fourteenth of March. Doors open

103
00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:45.480
at six thirty, and it is
what's the festival city. I mean,

104
00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:48.879
there are no assigned seats, so
if you want a certain kind of seat

105
00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:52.840
comment sixth general mission. All the
seats are good, like you say it

106
00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:58.559
will there be standing room only?
Well maybe I think the activists may be

107
00:08:58.679 --> 00:09:03.799
stayed, yeah, oh yeah,
have to. There's also going to be

108
00:09:03.879 --> 00:09:09.799
a lobby display and there'll be refreshments
after the It lasts about forty five to

109
00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:13.600
fifty five minutes, depending on how
long it takes for everybody to get seated

110
00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:18.200
and everything, and then we'll have
refreshments in the lobby afterwards, and we

111
00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:22.679
hope people will show starts at seven. All right, do you have a

112
00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:26.519
social media pages or a website?
Where folks can go. He has a

113
00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:30.879
Facebook page. I believe the Bartlesfield
Women's Network, which is a co sponsor

114
00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:35.279
of this, is also putting this
up on their webs on their Facebook page,

115
00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:39.799
and of course all of us personally
are throwing it up on our own

116
00:09:39.879 --> 00:09:45.120
Facebook pages, letting it get all
viral it. Yes, yes, now,

117
00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:48.080
this is great. I'm glad that
finally this is going to be able

118
00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:50.440
to take place because you've waited a
long time, I mean since yes,

119
00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:56.840
twenty Yeah. You know, voter
apathy is a terrible problem in this country,

120
00:09:58.039 --> 00:10:01.679
well judged by the light turnout yesterday, yes, and the League is

121
00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:07.679
really dedicated to changing that, to
making people understand how precious our right to

122
00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:11.120
vote is. That's good. That's
good, that's all the way around.

123
00:10:11.159 --> 00:10:13.039
That includes anybody who's going to vote, no matter what you look like,

124
00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:18.120
that's right. It's a non partisan
the organization, and they are here just

125
00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:24.240
to educate people about to how to
register, how to vote, to go

126
00:10:24.279 --> 00:10:30.159
through the process of it, and
to get involved in their communities and their

127
00:10:30.200 --> 00:10:33.879
politics. You're not allowed to complain
if you don't vote. Oh yeah,

128
00:10:33.960 --> 00:10:39.600
Frank Zappam you underscored that on some
rather colorful language, but yeah, the

129
00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:43.919
sentiment was exactly that if you don't
vote, you know, shut your trap.

130
00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:50.000
Yeah you had your chance at the
voting booth. That is very important.

131
00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:56.559
I've lived in communities where if they
had fourteen to eighteen percent voter turnout,

132
00:10:56.559 --> 00:11:03.879
it was considered a success. That
was I just rolled my eyes at

133
00:11:03.879 --> 00:11:07.000
that. I'm thinking, Wow,
you have every opportunity to either a firm

134
00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:13.840
or you know, vote for change
in what's going on right where you live,

135
00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:18.600
and you stayed home and watch TV. You know when I have it?

136
00:11:18.919 --> 00:11:22.159
No, I just said, there
you have it. And I do

137
00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:28.080
want to say this isn't There is
a man in this play, and men

138
00:11:28.279 --> 00:11:33.159
also took part in the struggle for
female voting. So for any gentleman out

139
00:11:33.159 --> 00:11:37.720
there listening, it's not just a
woman thing. Come see it. You'll

140
00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:41.080
see that men were very much a
part of this. We have a man

141
00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:46.559
portraying an eleven year old boy who's
against women voting, and he's very funny.

142
00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:50.559
He writes to a newspaper in Oklahoma
about why women should not have the

143
00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:54.120
vote. But then you have men
who you know, took part in the

144
00:11:54.159 --> 00:11:58.519
struggle, And I just want to
say it's not all female. Okay,

145
00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:01.240
come on down. So we're going
to get a good dose of history and

146
00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:03.559
a modest amount of entertainment. Yes, yes, I will make a little

147
00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:09.480
more than that. There were suffrage
songs, live the ballot to the womb

148
00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:20.320
that yeah, whole song books full
of wow movement songs. She's the expert,

149
00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:24.840
man, incredible, Save them more, you know. I want to

150
00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:30.159
thank you ladies here from the League
of Women Voters, Frand, Sydney and

151
00:12:30.399 --> 00:12:33.799
Shelby for all being a part of
this. And we'll see you next week

152
00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:39.399
right there on the on the big
stage. Thank you for having already We've

153
00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:39.120
got more coming