Mrs Pankhurst’s Players presents: Votes for Women!

First performed at the Court Theatre in 1907, Votes for Women! was lauded for its realistic portrayal of a suffragette rally and for its portrayal of a heroine who is empowered by her past, not destroyed by it.

Formed in 1908, the Actresses Franchise League (AFL) consisted of a range of theatre professionals working for the cause of women’s suffrage by creating pamphlets, holding meetings, staging suffrage plays and advising on costuming and choreography for large demonstrations.

In honour of their significant contribution to the cause of women’s suffrage in England, students from Edge Hill’s Drama Department will come together to celebrate the legacy of the AFL by staging Elizabeth Robbin’s classic suffrage play Votes for Women!

Written in the genre of a nineteenth century Problem play, Votes for Women! Tells the story of two women involved in the political fight for the vote for women in the early twentieth century: one who is converted to the cause by the integrity of the suffragettes she meets and the other whose “past” threatens to destroy her.