Made possible by the generosity of the Carol Lavin Bernick Grant, Newcomb Institute and The Department of Theatre and Dance at Tulane University,
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
Meet the Melbourne/Naarm Cast
Diapers. Politics. Snowpants.
Saturday, June 28 at 7:00pm at TAFTA,
60 Dawson Street, Brunswick, VIC, 3056 Australia
About Snowpants Don't Lie....
Notes from the Playwright:
The show is set in Oberlin, Ohio, USA. Oberlin is near the shores of Lake Erie which borders both Canada and the USA. From 1806 to 1865, Oberlin a historic terminus for the slavery underground railroad that would smuggle runaway enslaved people to freedom in Canada where slavery was illegal. Oberlin, OH is also the home of Oberlin College, a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music. “Founded in 1833, it is the oldest co-educational liberal arts college in the USA and the second oldest continuously operating co-educational institute of higher learning in the world. “ - Wikipedia
In North America, there are a few small territories that are independent of Canada, USA or Mexico and their laws are set by the First Nations that have for thousands of years lived upon them. This play references one of those sovereign territories that straddles Canada and the USA.
The show is set in the first week of December, 1968, one month after a national presidential election put Republican President Richard Nixon in the White House for his first term in office. He would take the oath in January of 1969, 6 weeks after the events of this play. Nixon had defeated not one but two serious candidates for the presidency, a rarity in American history.
Five of the fifty American States overwhelming voted to put an openly segregationist candidate, George Wallace, into office, splitting the vote around the country. Nixon in this historic election also defeated the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey, by a slim margin. Humphrey was chosen after the most popular candidate, Robert Kennedy had been shot dead on the campaign trail. While a pacifist candidate, George McGovern, was hugely popular, Humphrey was chosen as the “least offensive” candidate during a brokered Democratic convention in Chicago, in June of ‘68. Just outside of that Democratic convention, massive rioting and public protests answered by police with billy clubs and tear gas raged all around the city and on the national news.
In the USA in December of 1968, abortion was illegal nationally, regular folks had only recently won the right to legally to marry someone of another race, women could not have a credit card in their own name, and it was difficult for women to buy property alone or start a business. Marital rape was not a term yet used in law. Yet, at this time, women across America, and the world were on the verge of demanding their agency.
By 1972, women would win a supreme court ruling to have legal sovereignty over their own reproductive functions for medical, personal, or any reason, at all. And the “women’s movement” would create an unprecedented shift of women joining professional fields such as law, medicine, finance, and politics. However, this story is about the discovery of a small group of women who, even with education, grit and love, needed one another, as women often have, to surmount all those barriers still in place.
The story of “Snowpants Don’t Lie” is based on true events.
-A. Chaffee 6/16/24