The four fabulous young ladies below were all part of ‘Heroic Girlz’, which started as a stage play. It is now a narrative short film. In it, the girls journey to the past to explore their futures by becoming four historical American women heroes: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Louisa May Alcott, and Amelia Earhart. The women meet in the Afterlife and travel back to their own 11-year-old girlhoods to discover how they become the heroic women we know today. Their blogs discuss how their lives have been affected by being part of ‘Heroic Girlz’
On April 10, 2010, at Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington, the creators of the Heroic Girlz Educational Project, Cindy L. Parrish, Meg Agnew, and Laura Yurko, will facilitate a free workshop on the Heroic Girls Curriculum. They will do writing, visual arts, movement and theater exercises in which you will gain hands on training in this unique and creative educational process. Go to http://www.heroicgirlz.org/workshop.htm to sign up for this great opportunity.
ELON MICHAUD (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)
Heroic Girlz was, and still is, a really big part of my life, it helped me discover many things about myself. I have thought of what Elizabeth Cady Stanton might have done in situations that I face in my daily life. Her strength continues to be an inspiration to me.
Some of the most important lessons I learned from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Heroic Girlz project was to speak out from my heart, that I must act to achieve my dreams, to persevere, and to believe in myself no matter what. I am still working on this, of course.
Most people never have an experience like we have had; having our voices heard in that important time in our lives and to have others listen and care about what we thought.
Many women, especially our moms, worked very hard on this with us. I’m lucky to have many supportive women in my life, and to have had such a great opportunity. I’m glad we’ve been able to bring the stories of the four heroic women and their legacies to other girls and I hope that it can help others the way it helped me.
I will never forget Heroic Girlz and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; they are now a part of who I am.
EMMA POST (Amelia Earhart)
I would not say that my sense of self suddenly got better when I hit the age of eleven. In fact, the next year was a very hard year of my life (I moved to a new school where I was introduced to many things I didn’t have to deal with at my old school) and that’s why it was important to have made Heroic Girlz. Everything changed when I was 11 going on 12. I started to notice the fads and fashions of the outside world and cared about what I looked and acted liked. I really cared more about what people thought of me and started to feel insecure about myself. Heroic Girlz did not solve all of those problems but it made everything easier. It was a way for me to connect with girls my age and talk about the issues we were having and discover what it was like for women in the past to deal with the same things. Heroic Girlz has stayed and will always stay with me. It was a once in a lifetime experience that will always help me through hard times and I know it has completely changed my life. Looking at strong women like Amelia Earhart, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Louisa May Alcott and Amelia Bloomer has made me see what I can be some day and what women can really accomplish in a male-dominated world. Heroic Girlz has changed my life and I will definitely draw insights from it the rest of my life.
THEA EZINGA (Louisa May Alcott)
It’s difficult to pinpoint a specific time or way my sense of self changed. I guess I was at a place when I still felt like a little kid, but I felt ready to take a step towards growing up. I had been going to the same small school for 9 or so years, and I was getting a little impatient to see what the “outside world” was like. Making Heroic Girlz turned my attention inward, rather than outward, though, and I think that changed how I might have begun to think about myself, rather than how I already did.
If I had chosen to go to a larger school for 6th grade, or if we had not made Heroic Girlz, I think I would be a very different person today. I’ve always been rather shy, and I tend to try and please other people, and I feel like if I had looked to older girls or magazines or movies for guidance, I would have done my best to reflect what I saw and I would have been less of who I actually am or could be.
I don’t think that it’s possible to stop changing, whether it’s who you are, how others view you, or how you view yourself. The vary nature of life is change.
DEVYN YURKO (Amelia Bloomer)
Around eleven and twelve I was trying to find out who I was. I was often changing my opinions about life and the things I liked and I began to question what life was and how I fit into it. Perhaps I lost some confidence then because I was so unsure of myself, but I always liked being creative and thinking outside the box. Heroic Girlz helped me to do just that, as well as to enjoy time with my friends. I was really lucky to be able to express myself in the environment I lived in because kids don’t always get a chance to speak their minds.
Nowadays I am slowly rebuilding my confidence as I find my footing in my life and who I am, because why be silent when I have the freedom to be myself in the world? I have molded into a very different me from who I was at eleven, but I still have the same essence I did at that age. The essence that wants to enjoy life and live it to the fullest.
Heroic Girlz enabled me to express myself and question our ways of living. It showed me how one person with a bright enough light can change society and be themselves like the women we read about in history. We didn’t just research them however, we shared a part of our lives with them and we learned from their guidance as we embraced them and ourselves in Heroic Girlz. I don’t think I realized at the time how much I learned, but now all of our stories have opened up into my life like a book. All of the moments are lessons I will continue to learn from, an experience I will never forget.
WAM Theatre is grateful to Cindy L. Parrish and Meg Agnew for providing the writing above. Once again, please go to http://www.heroicgirlz.org/workshop.htm to sign up for their free workshop on April 10, 2010 at Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington.