By Alice Childress
Uprising Series curated by Hannah Rittner
*We would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts in supporting Hannah’s curatorial residency with the Festival from 2020-2022.

Series Description:
Hannah Rittner has discovered 400-plus plays by women between the 17th and 21st centuries as part of her two-year research project with the Stratford Festival entitled “The Feminist Expansion of the Western Canon,” in which she seeks to transform the Western theatrical canon so that it may include and celebrate the female gaze. In this series she has pulled together four plays that showcase women fighting against injustice through acts of uprising, and in doing so they become the heroes of their own story—but not without a fight.

Play Description:
A spell-binding story by one of the most important playwrights of the modern era. Wedding Band follows Julia, a Black woman desperate to escape the American South so that she can legally marry Herman, a white man who she’s loved for ten years. However, the influenza pandemic has sunk its teeth into the South, claiming Herman as its victim. Just after Herman gives Julia the engagement ring she has waited all this time for, she must fight to save his life in secret.

House Program: Wedding Band