The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
Center Spotlight
Ain Gordon Revisits the Female Reformers of Philadelphia’s Past in If She Stood
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Buy tickets for If She Stood at the Painted Bride Art Center website >
In October 2012, during a community forum at Philadelphia’s Painted Bride Art Center, Obie Award-winning playwright, director, and actor Ain Gordon revealed the root of his interest in unearthing hidden histories. “History didn’t seem to be about anybody I knew,” he said, recalling his childhood spent around older people, whose accomplishments were often relegated to the past, left behind to disappear. “And I wasn’t sure I was okay with that.” A theater artist interested in pursuing avenues of interdisciplinary practice, Gordon is coming to the end of an 18-month residency at the Bride, alongside documentarian and filmmaker Nadine Patterson, which allowed him to explore “forgotten” stories and figures from Philadelphia’s history. This collaborative project, dubbed Place Philadelphia and supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, culminates in the world premiere of Gordon’s new play, If She Stood, inspired by a small, multi-racial collective of women in Philadelphia who dared to take action against social wrongs in the early 1800s.
SLIDESHOW: Click to see promotional images from Ain Gordon’s IF SHE STOOD, presented at the Painted Bride Art Center from April 26 to May 5, 2013. 
During the residency period, Gordon and Patterson visited a number of historical sites, searching for unique tales of influential Philadelphians who are often marginalized or rendered invisible in mainstream history. They came upon the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, a collective founded in 1833 that included white women and free African-American women, working together to promote an abolitionist cause. They were not only fighting for an end to slavery, but also for the protection and education of newly freed men and women, and a boycott on goods produced by slave labor. The group met with public outrage, not only in response to its message, but to the very idea of women daring to stand and speak their minds to an audience of men. Pennsylvania Hall, a site built to serve as a meeting place for the participating women to gather and discuss these issues freely, was burned down by an angry mob in May 1838, just four days after it opened. “These women sparked riots by speaking,” Gordon says. “Their monumental bravery to go against everything the world around them said was right astonishes me, living, as I feel we do, in a relatively complacent time.”
In addition to this story of pre-suffrage and women’s rights activism, Gordon has also taken inspiration from the women’s Quaker heritage. For this production, the Bride’s performance space will be transformed into the setting of a 19th-century Quaker meeting—a place where attendees are traditionally encouraged to stand and speak when the mood strikes. “They are incredibly theatrical,” Gordon says of these meetings, having attended several throughout his research period. “Nobody stands until they feel compelled. And that’s what an actor is supposed to do. A character cannot speak on paper, for me, until truth arrives.” What prompts a person to stand, and what informs that moment—and how that action is then received by others—are the driving questions behind If She Stood, which also incorporates largely overlooked figures in both Philadelphia and women’s rights histories, such as Sarah Mapps Douglass, Sarah Grimké, Angelina Weld Grimké, and Sarah Pugh. “The visible invisibility of these women, the relatively scant position they hold in mainstream history, is what draws me to them,” Gordon says. “As a mid-career artist facing my own self-history, these human ellipses speak to me at the top of their lungs.”
Upcoming performances of If She Stood will take place at the Painted Bride Art Center on April 26–28 and May 3–5, 2013. Nadine Patterson’s related exhibition, Freedom, Fire, and Promiscuous Meetings, on view at the Bride through May 18, doubles as a community learning and discussion place for the play. Visit the Place Philadelphia website for additional information and upcoming ancillary programming, and purchase tickets for If She Stood at the Painted Bride Art Center website.
Ain Gordon is the 2011–13 Visiting Artist at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Click here to learn more about the Visiting Artist Program and to view interviews, photos, and more.
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August/September 2012: The 2012 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe
July 2012: Announcing the 2012 Pew Fellows in the Arts
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October 2010: Announcing the 2010 Pew Fellows in the Arts
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