Gertrude Bell was a lone woman in the male Muslim world of the Middle East, a famous author who wrote about the Arabs, an acknowledged archeologist, a courageous traveler who dined with china and crystal and dressed in extravagant clothes. And she was so much more. Gertrude was the first woman to be taken into… Continue Reading Adventures of a Desert Queen (Gertrude Bell) with Betsey Means
Drop-in at Hull House, where you’ll have tea with Jane Addams. If you’ve seen Betsey Means’ Holocaust survivor Alicia Appleman-Jurman or Emily Dickenson and others, you know the amount of research and rehearsal that goes into each gem of a performance. Continue Reading Democracy in America: Jane Addams
Although she permitted fewer than a dozen of her 1,800 poems to be published during her lifetime, today Emily Dickinson is considered one of America’s greatest poets and has remained continuously in print since 1890. For this performance, the year is 1880. You are Emily’s special guest at her home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Let’s hear what this brilliant, reclusive woman has to say. Adapted and performed by Betsey Means, Artistic Director of Womanlore. Betsey recently brought us Juliette Gordon Low (Girl Scouts), Mother Jones, and A Holocaust Memoir. Continue Reading An Intimate Afternoon with Emily Dickinson
Actor, Betsey Means, of WomanLore, brings us the book Daisy’s Girls, in which she portrays wealthy socialite Juliette Gordon Low, who, upon meeting the founder of the Boy Scouts, devotes the rest of her life to organizing, forming, and fundraising for the Girl Scouts of America. We’ve invited a Girl Scout troop to join us in the audience and then sell Girl Scout
cookies afterward!
Continue Reading Daisy’s Girls, the Story of Girl Scout Founder Juliette Gordon Low
You are in the room with prolific British “Queen of Crime” author, Agatha Christie, creator of such famous detectives as Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian, and English spinster Miss Jane Marple. Ms. Christie will enjoy a career spanning more than 50 years, and her work will sell into the billions. But today the year is 1949, and you have come to keep her company at her home in Devon. Agatha Christie is going away, and she has some things to tell you. Betsey Means, who recently brought us children’s advocate Mother Jones, animates the Queen of Crime. Continue Reading The Mystery of Living – Packing for Syria with Agatha Christie
Mother Jones was one of America’s most effective and dynamic labor organizers. In 1903, she marched striking mill children from Philadelphia to President Roosevelt’s home in Oyster Bay, New York, to draw the nation’s attention to the crime of child slavery. “These children are to be the future citizens of America! Yes, pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!” Betsey Means – who, in April, brought us the stunning, heroic story of Alicia Appleman-Jurman – returns to The Garlands as formidable, also heroic, Mother Jones. Continue Reading Mother Jones: March of the Mill Children