Wherever Working Men Go
 
 

Notes

All the while I was picturing Agnes Cummings, one of the finest actresses I have ever come across, dressed in that long black dress, haranguing a crowd from a pulpit. Of course I could only hope she would agree to play the woman once called "the most dangerous woman in America" by a particularly uptight and spineless politician (that may be redundant actually). Mother Jones was also one of  the most famous women of her time, although you'd never know that now. Her life has seemingly been erased from the pages of history, perhaps by those who get to edit and air brush the past to their liking. Historically, these have all been men by the way. Hmmm...

In our area, labor leader John Mitchell is still lionized, while the woman who dogged his every upper class step, goading him to stop trying to serve the working men while refusing to live in their world...is relegated to a historical footnote. If I was a miner walking down a dangerous dark alley, give me Mother Jones at my side any day. Mitchell could meet us
when the sun came up and cook us breakfast.

Lucky me. Agnes agreed to do it. But she had another request. A short, 10 minute script I had written earlier, called The Flying Girls reached her. She loved it, and asked if anybody else had seen it. I told her that another actress had expressed interest. She was quiet for a minute, and then I said...."of course, if you want to do it, it's yours..." I may be slow, but I eventually catch on. She was pleased, and I felt like I'd just won a Pulitzer. Here was my favorite stage actress in the world, asking ME if she could perform something I'd written.

The Flying Girls deals with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911...in which 146 (mostly young girls) people perished...many by choosing to jump from the windows instead of waiting for the flames to consume them. Watching those horrifying images from 9/11....where people leapt from the Trade Center building together, often holding hands united in death, brought my pen to paper. I tried to relive those last few moments on the precipice...which was damn difficult I can assure you. I'm not sure if I got it right, but Agnes says I did, and that's good enough for me.

Wherever Working Men Go is a first for me. What I've taken to calling my "acoustic monologue"...in which a miner explains through song how he is forced to make a decision that will both haunt him and crystallize his thoughts for the rest of his days.

So here is your chance to see one of PA's finest stage actresses up close....along with the luckiest playwright in the world hovering on the fringes, trying not to knock anything over.