SMILE LINES

Short play, One Act

By Joe Calarco

This groundbreaking and emotionally charged play immerses you in the fervor, intensity, determination, and selflessness of the Silent Sentinels protest at the White House in 1917. A century later, do we appreciate the sacrifices and convictions made by those brave individuals? SMILE LINES delves deep into the National Woman’s Party’s historic protests, connecting them to the ongoing struggle for all voices in today’s world.

Production Information

Cast of Characters
(10W or Nonbinary Actors)
Actor 1/Suffragist 1
Actor 2/Suffragist 2
Actor 3/Suffragist 3
Actor 4/Suffragist 4
Actor 5/Suffragist 5
Actor 6/Suffragist 6
Actor 7/Suffragist 7
Actor 8/Suffragist 8
Actor 9/Suffragist 9
Actor 10/Susan B. Anthony

Casting Note
While being a piece that celebrates the Women’s Suffrage movement, it also confronts the segregation and racism of the movement as well and was conceived to be performed by a very multicultural cast (I.e.: Actor 4 and 9 having their 1st language being non-English, and Actor 2 being Black), and having even more diversity in the cast is encouraged. You should also feel free, as suggested, to inhabit the cast with both female identifying and nonbinary actors.

Place
The United States of America

Time
Now and Then

Author’s Note
The piece is highly theatrical and movement driven and should never be presented as a group of actors simply reciting to the audience.

Author

Joe Calarco

Joe Calarco is a multi-award-winning director and playwright. He has served as Director of New Works at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, and as Resident Playwright at Expanded Arts, Inc. He was a Joseph Papp Artist in Residence at Second Stage, is one of New York Theatre Workshop’s “usual suspects,” is a Drama League directing fellow, is an Associate Artist at Barrington Stage Company, and is a member of The Dramatists Guild. Joe’s current works include I Am Rafiq (w/ collaborators Mohamad Alrefai and Kholoud Sawaf), The Circus in Winter (book writer w/ composer/lyricist Ben Clark), A Rhythmic Me (stage musical and screenplay, w/ collaborators Jared Grimes and Mark Meadows), and Spring Break (second in Joe’s series of plays for teens which follows the same 19 students through a year of their lives which starts with the currently published Winter Break). Published Works: Shakespeare’s R&J (Broadway Licensing/Dramatists Play Service - Lucille Lortel Award winner, produced in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Belgium, Israel, Brazil, Peru, China, South Korea), Walter Cronkite is Dead (Broadway Licensing/Dramatists Play Service, Best Stage Monologues of 2013), In the Absence of Spring (Broadway Licensing/Playscripts - inaugural production of Second Stage’s New Plays Uptown series, Best Stage Scenes of 2004), two collections of plays for...[FULL BIO]