War is a Habit!   It's like alcohol, to an intemperate man.   Jeannette Rankin Outstanding work . . . a favorable portrait of a fascinating personality, but it doesn't gloss over her thornier dilemmas. Jeff Hudson, Sacramento News and Review Wow! A Single Woman is a truly compelling piece of theater that brings Jeannette Rankin's vibrant personality and passionate opposition to war to life. It couldn't be more timely... I am really pleased to be able to support this wonderful effort... It's fabulous. -- Anita Doyle, Jeannette Rankin Peace Center, Missoula Montana

A SINGLE WOMAN, A stage play in two acts, written by Jeanmarie Simpson of the Nevada Shakespeare Company:
For a powerful, dramatic and timely play about the funny, brilliant, warm, irascible, scrappy woman who voted against both World Wars in Congress. The WWI vote landed on her in her first 6 days and she was totally alone in her vote against WWII. The first vote was taken on Good Friday, "the anniversary of the most notorious murder in history," as Jeannette Rankin pointed out while she tried to delay the vote in order to get people to think!

The play moves backwards through Rankin's life from one of her last television talk show appearances when she was 92 in the early 1970's, to her childhood on the Montana plains in 1880. The play is an exploration - both subtle and down to earth - of the genius and courage of her career as an activist and advocate for women, workers and children. A Single Woman builds to its sublime ending - a quietly powerful elucidation of the key to Rankin's character, cast in a flashback of encounter with indigenous people.

Audiences will experience the life, times and fortitude of first US Congresswoman and lifelong pacifist, Jeannette Rankin. Jeannette Rankin voted against US entry into both world wars as a representative in Congress in 1917, before Suffrage, and again in 1941 when hers was the lone dissenting voice. Rankin once said, "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." She was a great friend and unrequited love of New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and a thorn in the side of public figures including Franklin Roosevelt. Rankin was founding Vice-President of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Working with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Europe, Jeannette railed against the Treaty of Versailles as it would "create a monster" by punishing Germany. In the US, she led a Peace Parade at the Republican convention in Chicago in 1932 with the National Congress of Jewish Women and church groups, and recent Nobel Peace prize-winner Jane Addams. They were calling for Peace Planks to outlaw war forever (urging Democrats to do the same.) As founding Vice President of the ACLU, she urged President Roosevelt to rescue Jews/religious and political prisoners from Europe in 1933 and onwards! The ACLU effort was shamefully rebutted.

A major suffragist since 1910, Jeannette Rankin was the first woman in Congress, voted in from Montana four years before women even had the vote nationally (1920). In fact, she was the first woman elected to the legislature of any western democracy! Jeannette Rankin fought for equal pay and an 8-hour day for women, child labor laws, the rights of Native and African Americans, and rights of immigrants, including the first bill for immigrant women's rights to citizenship independent of their husbands. Gerrymandered out of her district in Montana, she lived in her own dirt floor house and worked in Georgia among poor people for a system of direct representation in presidential elections. During those decades she devised a multi-candidate system for a broader spectrum of Congressional representation.

A Single Woman has played in six states, celebrated by critics and audiences in more than two-dozen cities nationwide.

"...the Nevada Shakespeare Company has made a habit, a career and a mission of doing work that informs and illuminates our lives..."
- Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy introduced the play when it was performed at North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation to 200 people in 2004.

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A Single Woman at Riprap Studio Theatre
5755 Lankershim Blvd.
NoHo, CA 91601
June 16, 2005-July 24, 2005
Tickets and Information below or call (818) 990-7498

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Sandra Maria Nutt, founder of Riprap Writers' Playhouse, theatre owner and veteran actress of prominent New York stages including AMAS Rep and the Negro Ensemble Company is "ecstatic" about the opportunity to stage Nevada Shakespeare Company's A Single Woman at Riprap Studio Theatre in North Hollywood, California June 2005. Sandra will play Jeannette Rankin in the Equity 99 Seat Plan production. Other cast members, in alphabetical order, include Wil Bowers, Lisa Pettett, and Bart Shattuck.

CAST in alphabetical Order:

Wil Bowers [Everyman]. A talented and versatile actor, Will was seen most recently at Write Act in the stage plays Cymbeline, Kafka's The Trial and Diane Grant's A Dog's Life. He is the proud recipient of the NAACP Theatre Award as Best Actor for his role in Celebration Theatre's production of Insurrection: Holding History. Other favorite roles include Garnet, the James Brown/Jackie Wilson impersonator in Blade to the Heat at Stage 52 and the Coast Playhouse also Corporal Paul Robinson in the Valley Theatre League Award winning Niggas with Attitudes. On TV, Wil's appearances include Wil & Grace, The Wayans Bros., and General Hospital. Film roles include a fighter pilot in Surface to Air, with Michael Madsen; Rumors, with Hill Harper and Diana Ross impersonator in the indie, Doves and numerous shorts. An Illinois native and Boston transplant, Wil is a member of SAG, AFTRA and AEA. Wil performs the role of EVERYMAN THURSDAY and FRIDAY for the remainder of the run, at 8PM through July 24, 2005. ALL Sunday performances are at 7PM.

Sandra Nutt [Jeannette Rankin]. "There's a terrific need for A Single Woman in Los Angeles. It's a tour de force for a female actor and the play is perfectly suited for my intimate theatre space. Ms. Rankin is loveable and irascible at the same time and I adore her intelligence and humble beginnings. I felt Ms. Rankin's compassion while reading the play - that would be the number one reason that I want to produce it. Her convictions are a direct result of her upbringing and she had the guts to act on them consistently. In terms of casting, my primary goal was to find actors with talent - talent that will go beyond the call of duty to invest themselves into the roles. I pride myself on having a theatre that, upon entering, people don't want to leave - I want the actors and the audience to feel the same." For Sandra's bio, credits and resume see Sandra Nutt. Sandra performs the role of JEANNETTE every SATURDAY and SUNDAY for the remainder of the run through July 24, 2005. ALL Sunday performances are at 7PM.

Lisa Pettett [Jeannette Rankin]. Lisa has worked professionally as an actress, dancer, and singer for over twenty-five years. She originally began her career in theatre at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park. Lisa has performed as a member of Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble and West Coast Ensemble, and Santa Fe Stages in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her credits include guest star roles on television, and in local, regional and national commercials. As a dancer, she has performed tap, ballet, jazz, swing, salsa, hip hop, and Argentine Tango. Public performances have included NoHo Arts Festival, Universal Citywalk, the Sunset Room in Hollywood, Nethrim 7 at 1042 Gallery, Magicopolis Theatre, J.Paul Getty Museum, LA Arts & Music Festival, the Bonaventure Hotel, The Highlands, Movement 2004 at the Palace theatre in downtown Los Angeles and at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. Lisa performs the role of JEANNETTE every THURSDAY and FRIDAY for the remainder of the run, at 8PM through July 24, 2005. ALL Sunday performances are at 7PM.

Bart Shattuck [Everyman]. Bart has appeared on-stage with American Players' Theatre in Spring Green, WI; Todo Con Nada in New York City, Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, VA, and the Shadow Lawn Theatre in Monmouth, NJ, to name a few. He also toured with the National Shakespeare Company throughout the United States. His experience is weighted toward the classics, having appeared in three separate productions of Twelfth Night, and three productions of Macbeth, and many other of Shakespeare's plays as well as two by Christopher Marlowe. He has performed in numerous improv comedy shows and written, directed and acted in sketch comedy. In film, Bart appears in the comedy feature Hacks directed by Glenn Rockowitz, as Dean Stanley in the film Backlash directed by Kevin Campbell, in numerous short films, and in a handful of guest starring TV Roles. Bart performs the role of EVERYMAN every SATURDAY and SUNDAY for the remainder of the run. ALL Sunday performances are at 7PM.

Jeanmarie Simpson, Playwright, is Founding Artistic Director of the Nevada Shakespeare Company. The Rhapsodic Theatre of Karol Joseph Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), Tadeusz Kantor's Autonomous Theatre, The Living Theatre and the early Abbey Theatre have deeply influenced Jeanmarie's theatre work for more than 20 years. Since 1989, she has directed dozens of shows for NSC. In the past three years, she has directed Euripides' The Trojan Women and a four-actor King Lear, which she also adapted and in which she played Goneril and the Doctor. In that time, she has also performed in The Road to Mecca, directed by Tony Award winner Zakes Mokae, Amigas, which she also co-adapted, La Noche Antes de Navidad (a bi-lingual Night Before Christmas) and A Single Woman, which she also wrote. Jeanmarie travels with A Single Woman, which she performs with her lifemate, Cameron Crain. She is mother to three magnificent persons, Domenic and Paul Stockton and Emily Harbaugh. HISTORY. For more than a year A Single Woman creator Jeanmarie Simpson has performed the role of Rankin. When asked why she would turn over the material to another actor, Simpson explained, "It's vital that people meet Jeannette Rankin, her words, her actions and her remarkable character, without the identity of another person blurring the view. The more people become involved, the more of an impact Jeannette's voice can make on contemporary culture. Let's face it. We need help in this country and in the world and we don't have enough voices with the intellectual and moral clarity of Jeannette Rankin's."

David L. Stewart, Artistic Director of Riprap Studio Theatre will direct A Single Woman. David has been on board with Riprap since its inception in 1999 and he will direct the Los Angeles production. "David and my stage manager, John Nemeth, Jr., built the theatre for me from the ground up. They really understand what I want on my stage," Nutt says.

Visit the New York Times to read what has been said about A SINGLE WOMAN as performed by Jeanmarie Simpson with the Nevada Shakespeare Company and please take a moment, if you have seen and appreciated A Single Woman, to write a review of your own (keep those 5-star ratings coming!).
Click here: New York Times.

Educational Links re Jeannette Rankin:
Suffragists Oral History Project.
Houghton Mifflin - The Reader's Companion to American History
Common Dreams News Center
Jeannette Rankin Foundation
About Jeannette