Photo courtesy of Speranza Theatre Company.
In 1889, there was almost no such thing as a woman journalist. But then there was Nellie Bly, who challenged this norm and ran with it by completing a record-breaking trip around the world in 72 days, starting and finishing her journey in Hudson County.
Bly is just one of many trailblazing women’s stories who often go untold. But at Speranza Theatre, nestled in Jersey City’s Bergen Square at the historic Apple Treehouse, people can now hear and experience Bly’s story plus nine other pioneering women through their limited show, “IN HER FOOTSTEPS,” which is a celebration and tribute to different women in history with actors bringing it all back to life.
“… I didn’t hear about Nellie Bly or Alice Paul or a lot of the women that we are featuring in ‘IN HER FOOTSTEPS’ because that’s not who wrote the history books,” stated Heather Wahl, the founder and executive artistic director of Speranza Theatre. “[Speranza’s] doing our best to share that missing history… I think it’s fantastic that we have a Women’s History Month, but it can’t stop there.”
“IN HER FOOTSTEPS” will continue their limited-time showings this Sunday, March 16 with showtimes at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. along with the remaining two weekends for the month. Tickets are $15, but students and older folks can use discount codes “STUDENT” for $5 off and “SENIOR” for $3 off. For more information you can visit here.
Finding Hope
Wahl has been a Hudson County resident for a long time.
Over a decade ago, she was going to graduate school in New York where she and her friends continued encountering the same issue: so many women actresses, but not nearly enough women roles.
Wahl and her friends decided to take matters into their own hands and out came Speranza Theatre in 2014. “Speranza” stems from Italian, which means “hope.” Wahl said that word is what they wanted to encapsulate.
“Speranza was founded to give a voice to underrepresented individuals, in particular women,” she added.
“… We really wanted to shift that narrative. So for us, we focus on telling women’s stories, and at least half of the people on stage need to be women identifying. So we’re offering, I hope, a lot more opportunities for women to get to share their voices, whether it’s as a playwright or on stage as an actor. Even behind the scenes as the director or producer or stage managers, we’re giving lots of opportunities to women to share their voices.”
They launched their first season in New York, but couldn’t find their audience. When they started looking for a new location to settle in, Wahl smiled and said that the answer seemed almost too obvious.
“There’s so much theater in New York. It’s an exciting place to do theater, but it’s very saturated,” Wahl explained. “So we decided on Jersey City because it was my home…It was convenient and we got really lucky discovering that we had such a strong community in Jersey City.”
Now it’s been 12 years since landing at their 298 Academy Street location and the founder expressed her gratitude for how much the community has helped build them up.
The theatre has worked with “almost all” of the other art organizations in Jersey City including Art House Productions and Jersey City Theater Company, to name a couple. They’ve also worked with non-arts organizations and local schools by offering educational programming or private studio classes like playwriting, acting and production.
If Everyone Puts A Piece, You Get A Mosaic
The beginnings of “IN HER FOOTSTEPS” humbly began in Jersey City’s City Hall.
It started off as an exhibit for Women’s History Month after a city councilwoman approached the theatre company, asking them to create it. At the time, it was a one day project that didn’t even have the same title.
But now, over the last four years, it’s changed; just last year, they added actors to the project to give it a different feel.
Walking into Apple Treehouse, you’ll notice it’s hard to miss historical features. A sign of the “Museum of Jersey City”—a city organization that also resides there—is laid out in the front while a banner on the side of the front gate hangs, “IN HER FOOTSTEPS,” it reads, colorfully.
After making your way through the cozy home, which preserves years’ worth of stories, you’ll enter a room with informational boards or banners, designated tables with different decor and a woman attached to each station. Welcoming you to walk in the footsteps of:
- Alice Paul
- Nellie Bly
- Mary T. Norton
- Ruth Asawa
- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- Shirley Chisholm
- Dolores Huerta
- Babe Didrikson
- Sally Ride
- Dr. Maya Angelou
“Audiences [get] to meet the women from history in person at the show,” Wahl said.
“We mingle with the audience, always in character, just as if you were at Disney World or something, and you’ve met Cinderella, she’s in character the whole day. So the same idea with our women from history.”
But there’s more than that.
The audience gets a bingo card for a chance to win prizes, they can get an autograph from one of them or even write a poem for Maya Angelou. At the end, they watch a short film and are welcomed to a panel discussion where they can ask the women anything they want to know about them.
Wahl emphasized that while March is the theatre’s busiest month between their play production and requested performances, she thinks this sets up for a brighter future, especially in Hudson County.
Speranza has made their way roughly halfway throughout the county including: Jersey City, Hoboken, Bayonne, Kearny, Harrison and Union City. They’re currently working on bringing their play to Secaucus.
“We started to tour around Hudson County and we loved being able to bring the theater to the community, rather than the community always coming to us in one spot,” she added.
And as they went around the county for their “Votes for Women” production, they had their audiences help create a collaborative mosaic, recreating women’s rights activist Alice Paul’s quote: “Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.”
Speranza also previously put on “Women’s Rising,” a play in partnership with Women’s Rising, a local nonprofit group that provides resources and a safe space for domestic violence victims. Wahl teared up reminiscing on the impactful play—that was built off of interviews with survivors—and said: “It’s a show I’d love to bring back.”
And if you can’t catch a show this month, Wahl said next up, they’re working with the Office of Jersey City and Hudson County Cultural Affairs, the Museum of Jersey City History and Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy to bring a new play “Rev 250,” which focuses on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence being signed.
“I think in today’s society, it’s more important than ever that we continue to work together… I also think that it’s really important that we continue to not only use our voice, but understand that we have a voice. And to keep going, to keep going, keep going,” Wahl urged.
“Shirley Chisholm talks about if there’s not a seat at the table, bring your own chair. If we’re not getting a seat at the table, you know, to continue making space for ourselves.”
