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The American Dame

By Phillip C. Lewis

Directed by Suzanne Dewberry
SCT's 1983 Mississippi Theatre Association Festival Show
January 26, 1983 - Public Performance
Methodist Student Center on the MSU campus
January 29, 1983 - MTA Festival

Featuring – Alice Carol Caldwell, Frances Heller, Mindy Hetrick, John Graef and O. Wendell Manuel


In setting forth his study of American Womanhood (and how she got to be what and where she is) the author begins at the beginning—with Eve and the apple. From this earliest hint of what was to come he moves on, in historical sequence, through biblical and Elizabethan times and, drawing closer to home, to the lot of Indian squaws and Puritan and Colonial ladies. Supplementing his own sprightly imagination with vivid excerpts from journals, biographies, letters, plays, newspapers, sermons, and even trial extracts he constructs a well-defined and amusing picture of his ever changing yet always intriguing subject. As times (and mores) move on, the author sharpens focus on his subject with witty examinations of the first American working girl; the educated woman; the frontier wife; the suffragette; the bloomer girl and the clubwoman. The men may be reluctant to admit it, but "The American Dame" is on her way to becoming an equal partner with the male. In fact before the cycle is complete the admission is finally and grudgingly made that perhaps women are the superior sex after all.


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