JSAC Speaker Event: “Someone Must Wash the Dishes: An Anti-Suffrage Satire” February 22 at 2pm in the 3rd Floor Cafe Space (Free Event courtesy of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities) Refreshments available. Part of JSAC's mission to support local arts programming and educational events. Refreshments will be for sale before and during the event.

MICHÈLE LaRUE In "Someone Must Wash the Dishes An Anti-Suffrage Satire"

Written by MARIE JENNEY HOWE

Directed by WARREN KLIEWER For THE EAST LYNNE COMPANY

Staging consultant ELAINE BROMKA 

Many women fought against getting the vote in the early 1900s, but none with more charm, prettier clothes—and less

logic—than the fictional speaker in this satiric monologue written by pro-suffragist Marie Jenney Howe, back in 1912.

“Woman suffrage is the reform against nature,” declares Howe’s unlikely, but irresistibly likeable, heroine.

“Ladies, get what you want. Pound pillows. Make a scene. Make home a hell on earth—but do it in a

womanly way! That is so much more dignified and refined than walking up to a ballot box and dropping

in a piece of paper!”

Reviewers have called this production “wicked” in its wit, and have labeled Michèle LaRue’s

performance “side-splitting.” An Illinois native, now based in New York, LaRue is a professional actress

who tours nationally with a repertoire of shows by Gilded Age and Progressive Era American writers.