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The Little Women Project is a pilot program designed to demonstrate one means of engaging students in investigations of the humanities. South County Players Children’s Theatre (SCPCT) is implementing the project in phases. Phase I brought together a group of children who researched, wrote, and performed an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. In phase II the production will tour throughout Rhode Island in 2005. Future phases will involve documenting the process of working with students in the humanities and dissemination of the documentation.
Phase I
In March 2004 a group of twelve members of SCPCT, ages 8–18 years, began researching New England and specifically Concord, Massachusetts, in the mid-1800s with the intention of writing an original adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
Student researcher-writers were motivated to do the research because that research was being carried out for a real reason — the writing of the play. After jointly and individually reading the text, the students were each assigned investigations in areas of the humanities with specific questions to be answered. Most of the research was via the Internet. Use of the Internet facilitated the research and the transmission of our information to each other. We were in contact with each other via the Internet more often than our four-times-weekly meetings. Historians, as characters that speak directly to the audience, were created and serve to give the audience information about the politics, fashion, medical practices, social customs, and some philosophies of the mid-nineteenth century.
From their research the cast members chose preliminary costume and set designs to be used in the final production. These designs were presented to the professional designers and builders for inspiration and consideration.
The group of actors performed the play 32 times at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI, for the general public, numerous summer camps, and Boys and Girls Clubs of Rhode Island.
Many of the situations presented in the script have relevance in our lives today. The role of women is still being debated, the influence of war on those who are fighting on the battlefronts and on those left behind is apparent on the nightly news, and our relationships with our families and those in our communities continue to present challenges.
Some of the researched information has been augmented by the students’ personal experiences using the clothing and props of the day. The actresses in the play wear a total of 37 period-correct costumes representing both the seasons of the year and differing social occasions.
“After a summer of wearing seven petticoats and long dresses, we better understood the restrictions that were placed on young women of the mid-1800s.” — Grace Danna, Miss Josephine March
Phase II
Now we are in phase II of our project. The goals are:
1) To tour the state of Rhode Island with the Theatre’s stage play adaptation of Little Women and inform our audiences of the “way of life” in New England in the mid-nineteenth century.
2) To require our audiences to examine themselves and available resources about how we have lived our lives for the past 150 years.
3) To inspire other educators to use this method to teach the humanities to their students.
Each performance is preceded by an overview of the project and followed by a presentation by one of three scholars.
Funding for the Little Women Project is provided by:
The Little Women Project