Champlain Theatre to Present 'Blue Stockings' Nov. 3-5

Champlain students and faculty star in "Blue Stockings" by Jessica Swale, a socially relevant play that coincides with the official opening of Champlain's Women and Gender Center. Set in 1896 at Girton College, Cambridge University, pioneering young women are determined to win the right to earn university degrees, despite the many obstacles they face - including the class divide, the distractions of love, and the strength of the opposition, who will do anything to stop them.

Directed by Kerry Noonan, "Blue Stockings" features students as students and professors as professors. Leading roles are played by Elizabeth Humensky, Donovan Thacker, Kenny Andrew, Kathy Seiler, Alex Hudson, Will Saxe, and Gary Scudder.


About the Play: t is 1896 at Girton College, Cambridge, and Elizabeth Welsh is preparing for battle.

Girton is the first college in Britain to admit women. The girls risk their reputations for their education. They study ferociously and match their male peers grade for grade. Yet, when the men graduate, the girls leave empty-handed, with nothing but the stigma of being a ‘blue stocking'- an unnatural, educated woman- to their names. They are unqualified and unmarriageable.

Principal Elizabeth Welsh is determined to win the girls the right to graduate, whatever the cost. Can they persuade the University? Not if the average fellow or undergraduate can prevent it.

Meanwhile, Cambridge offers far more than merely educational opportunities to the Girton Girls. The battle for the vote, it seems, is the least of Elizabeth's worries. Blue Stockings follows Welsh and the Girton Girls over this tumultuous year, in their fight to change the history of education.
‘The only thing a woman can own is knowledge...  We must build our Trojan horse and infiltrate from the inside.'


Champlain Theater presents "Blue Stockings" by Jessica Swale

November 3, 4, and 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Champlain College Alumni Auditorium, 375 Maple St., Burlington, VT 05402
General seating.  Free for all Champlain students with I.D.; Champlain Faculty and Staff. $5,  General Public $10
Website: http://knoonan2.wixsite.com/bluestockings
Email champlaintix@gmail.com for information and ticket reservations


Founded in 1878, Champlain College is a small, not-for-profit, private college in Burlington, Vermont, with additional campuses in Montreal, Canada, and Dublin, Ireland. Champlain offers a traditional undergraduate experience from its beautiful campus overlooking Lake Champlain and over 90 residential undergraduate and online undergraduate and graduate degree programs and certificates. Champlain's distinctive career-driven approach to higher education embodies the notion that true learning occurs when information and experience come together to create knowledge. Champlain College is included in the Princeton Review's The Best 384 Colleges: 2019 Edition. For the fourth year in a row, Champlain was named a "Most Innovative School" in the North by U.S. News & World Report's 2019 "America's Best Colleges,” and a “Best Value School” and is ranked in the top 100 “Regional Universities of the North” and in the top 25 for “Best Undergraduate Teaching.” Champlain is also featured in the Fiske Guide to Colleges for 2019 as one of the "best and most interesting schools" in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and is a 2019 College of Distinction. For more information, visit champlain.edu.