4 Women, Tea +19, imagining a conversation among revolutionary American suffragists Lucy Stone, Carrie Catt, Alice Paul, and Ida B. Wells, fighting for American women's right to vote

4 Women, Tea + 19 is an intimate live theatrical performance that imagines a conversation over tea among four historical figures who fought for women's suffrage and the 19th Amendment. The United States Constitution's Nineteenth Amendment states: "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. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Though these four women were never in the same room together during their lifetimes, the performance imagines them gathering on a Sunday afternoon to talk, reflect, and share the long journey toward winning American women the constitutional right to vote. Featured Historical Figures & Performers: Lucy Stone,(1818-1893), known as a leading suffragist and abolitionist. The first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree, defied gender norms when she famously wrote marriage vows to reflect her egalitarian beliefs and refused to take her husband’s last name. [caption id="attachment_185942" align="alignleft" width="300"] Lucy Stone (Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)[/caption] Lucy Stone is played by Carolyn Hummel, a native Kansas Citian and history teacher whose love of the past and love of performing collided in the work of historical interpretation. She has been giving voice to history for more than a decade. Portrayals have taken her to the Wornall House, the Alexander Majors House, the Kansas City Library, Shawnee Town 1929, and the Ernie Miller Nature Center. In recent years Carolyn has leaned into the stories of women who refused to stay quiet, from Emma Goldman and Rosie the Riveter to the countless sturdy women of the prairie who shaped the 1800s and the turn of the century. As part of the America 250 programming, she presented a two-day event on Kansas’s role in the fight for women’s suffrage. In this performance Hummel brings you Lucy Stone, a woman who was never one to wait for permission to speak. [caption id="attachment_185945" align="alignleft" width="286"] Carolyn Hummel[/caption] [caption id="attachment_185949" align="alignleft" width="228"] Carrie Chapman Catt (Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)[/caption] Carrie Chapman Catt, (1859-1947), a leading figure in the women's suffrage movement. Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 to support newly enfranchised women and promote civic engagement, and was an advocate for international peace and women’s rights, co-founding the International