Fri 2/27-Sun 3/1

Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995) was one of the earliest women to serve in Congress, in the House from 1940-1949 and in the Senate from 1949-1973. A Republican from Maine, she worked her way up from local politics and followed her husband to D.C. when he was elected to Congress. When he died in 1940, she won a special election to replace him, a typical move for women of that era. She was known as a “moderate Republican,” which was roughly equivalent to a progressive Democrat today!

She attracted attention when, in 1950, she made a speech calling out Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was then ramping up his smear campaign of branding wide swaths of people “Communists” and destroying hundreds of careers and lives over the next four years. In that speech, which wouldn’t feel out of place today coming from the likes of Elizabeth Warren, she asserted that Americans had the right to criticize, think independently, hold unpopular beliefs, and protest without being branded a “Communist” or “fascist.”

Noted playwright Joe DiPietro, who established himself as a successful playwright with his 1996 Off Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, wrote a play called Conscience in 2020, depicting the events surrounding that speech, which was dubbed The Declaration of Conscience. RKP Productions out of Anchorage, Alaska, has toured their production of the play on the west coast, and now it’s coming to Cleveland, thanks to longtime former Alaska resident Darl Schaaff, who now owns and runs The Darl Center for the Arts in Slavic Village. That’s where it will be performed in the center’s dedicated theater space on the lower level. The one-weekend-only run will have four performances, on Friday February 27 @ 7:30pm, on Saturday February 28 @ 1:30 and 7:30pm, and on Sunday March 1 @ 1:30pm.

Go here for tickets.