Welcome to Script Insights! Ever wonder what goes on in the mind of a playwright? In this series, you get a rare and exciting opportunity to hear directly from the authors themselves. Each article offers personal insights from the playwright, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process, character motivations, and thematic explorations that bring their scripts to life.
Below, you’ll find a downloadable blog post offering valuable insights about On Account of Sex from authors Bryan Colley and Tara Varney. The downloaded PDF also includes supplemental classroom activities to help you connect the play’s themes and characters with your students.
Be sure to download this resource, which contains several classroom activities, by clicking the button above!
History, Activism, and Theatre: Bringing the 19th Amendment to Life
Bryan Colley, Tara Varney
The 19th Amendment is a simple and straight-forward statement, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The amendment’s origin can be traced to the “Declaration of Sentiments” presented at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1847. Along with declaring that women should be able to vote, it outlined several other grievances women faced that activists later sought to correct. Thanks to their efforts, by the time the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, it was a considerably different world for women. They could speak in public, attend college, manage businesses, earn their own income, run for office, and vote in multiple states. Over a hundred years later, things have changed even more for women, but the struggle for equality and respect continues, not just in the United States but around the world.
There were so many women (and a few men) that were involved in the suffrage movement that we couldn’t tell all their stories, so instead we told the story of the 19th Amendment itself. “On Account of Sex” details each step the amendment took from conception to ratification and focuses on seven women who were most instrumental in getting it passed. For them it was a life of persistence and frustration, because it took 70 years of activism for the amendment to become law. Three of them passed away long before ratification, after dedicating their lives to the cause, but they died knowing that the country had changed significantly for women thanks in part to their sacrifice. Their work was passed onto others who weren’t even born when the movement began. This passing of the torch is at the heart of “On Account of Sex,” and the play calls for people of today to continue with the struggles of the past.
It's easy to take for granted that women can vote, and few today would even question the idea, but it was fiercely resisted for decades, just as many issues today are hotly contested, debated, and fought against. The play goes beyond the history of the amendment to show the American political process, where every new idea is met with resistance, and every effort for change is a struggle, often for seemingly petty, incomprehensible, or non-existent reasons. The play demonstrates the enormous effort it takes to instigate change in the world. We were informed by one reviewer that, “The show is performed in the style of Agitprop (agitation propaganda), a form of political theatre popularized in the 1960s by groups such as San Francisco Mime Troupe, Free Southern Theatre, and El Teatro Campesino.” In that vein, we hope the play doesn’t just inform but rouses the audience to activism.
However, while advocacy and history lessons are invaluable, this is foremost a work of theatre intended to entertain. Our approach was to inject as much humor, drama, and heart into the events as possible. Even though we all know how the play ends, we hoped to make audience invested in the struggle these women faced and feel their sense of triumph. We also invite audience participation by directly addressing them and asking them to read the amendments. We want the play to be as engaging and fun to watch as it is informative, and we took care not to make it too didactic.
Which brings us to the music. Music was an important part of the suffrage movement. There were anthems like “March of Women” that rallied everyone together, and marching songs set to familiar melodies that crowds could sing to keep in step. There were also songs that ridiculed the suffrage movement or used it for social commentary. All of the songs in the show were written between 1850 and 1920. We sifted through dozens of these songs to find the ones that were not only catchy to the modern ear but fit into the framework of the play. They help move the story forward and bring it to life.
We designed the play with four women playing all the roles – male and female. The women can be of any age or ethnicity, and the cast can be expanded to play multiple other roles, with the four women playing the seven suffrage leaders. When these leaders gave lectures on suffrage in the 19th century, they would sometimes dress the stage up like a parlor to reflect domestic life. We wanted our set to evoke the same idea and surround these women with the tools of their trade, most prominently a clothesline where a timeline of significant dates are hung leading up to ratification in 1920.
“On Account of Sex” was intended to be produced in 2020 for the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, but the performance was canceled due to the pandemic. An online reading of the play was recorded instead and debuted on the August 18, 2020 anniversary of the amendment. A slightly trimmed hour-long production was subsequently performed at the Kansas City Fringe Festival in 2023, where it won Best of Fringe and the Best “Made in KC” award. It was published by Gitelman and Good Publishers in 2024.