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Hartbeat Ensemble: Woodhull/Beecher in New Haven
Friday, June 20 – 8pm
Saturday, June 21-2pm
HartBeat Ensemble presents a staged reading of Woodhull/Beecher, a new play by Leslie Gabel-Brett exploring the tension between hope and despair in the struggles for personal and social justice. Victoria Woodhull – feminist, spiritualist, free-love advocate and first female presidential candidate – clashes with Henry Ward Beecher – minister, abolitionist, brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe and, to some, the “most famous man in America.” Set in late 1800’s New York, the lives of Woodhull and Beecher intersect in a contest of ideas and ambitions that erupt into a public scandal from which neither can fully recover. The play reveals truths about patriarchy, sexuality, hypocrisy, the power of public narrative and the costs of activism. Victoria Woodhull could see the future – but could she change it?
Founded in 2001, HartBeat Ensemble’s mission is to create provocative theater that connects our community beyond traditional barriers of race, gender, class and geography.
