Clare Coss, Playwright - Writing and reading one-woman plays about Lillian Wald and Mary White Ovington, feminist women who fought against poverty, racism, and war

“A celebration!”

The New York Times

“beautifully captures Wald's spirit”

Alice Kessler Harris, Professor of History, Department Chair, Columbia University

“Very moving! Very inspirational! Very stimulating! Very meaningful! Unique wonderful experience of connecting us to our roots while thinking futuristically.”

R.W.J. Executive Nurse Fellows Program Leadership Seminar

“This play should be seen on every college campus.”

Catharine R. Stimpson, University Professor; Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University

“Your Lillian Wald play set the stage beautifully for our conference. What a wonderful way to be an activist. What a wonderful way to reach us. Thank you for coming to Vancouver and inspiring us with your insights into Lillian Wald.”

Nina Rumen and Nora Whyte, Registered Nurses Association of British Columbia

“Lillian Wald speaks to us about our own problems: cities and poverty, power and feminism. Clare Coss captures and recreates the multiple and complex voices of this provocative, charismatic ‘lady leader’.”

Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Professor of History, University of Michigan

“Clare Coss's play, a vibrant portrait, lures us to a fascinating selection of Wald's speeches and letters. In Lillian D. Wald: Progressive Activist we encounter an extraordinary American woman whose sensitivity and anger drew her to visionary work...At a time when we fight a narrowing of the definition of feminism, this book is crucial inspiration in a unique and welcoming form.”

Honor Moore, Poet, Playwright, and Editor of the Anthology The New Women's Theatre: Ten Plays by Contemporary American Women

Running Time: One Hour
Requirements: Lectern

Presented at Colleges and Universities,
Conferences and Conventions,
Community Centers and Schools

Clare Coss welcomes discussion with the audience sparked by the play. For Booking Information, contact Clare Coss: clarechi@gmail.com.

LILLIAN D.WALD
(1867-1940)

Lillian D. Wald, pioneering public health nurse, social reformer and peace activist, created the Henry Street Settlement, Visiting Nurse Service, Neighborhood Playhouse, public playgrounds, school lunches and countless other visionary and urgent "firsts."

Wald's vision and work inspired many loving and powerful titles: Lady Light, Dear Lady of Miracles, She Who Must Be Obeyed, and That Damned Nurse Troublemaker. Young women and men were eager to work at the settlement to achieve their "LDW" degrees in social activism.

The play is set at dawn May 8, 1916 in Wald's office/sitting room at the Henry Street Settlement on New York City's Lower East Side. She is preparing to lead a peace delegation to the White House where she hopes to convince President Woodrow Wilson to keep the U.S. from entering the war and call for a conference of neutral nations to end the war. Armed with thousands of signed petitions, this courageous mission will enrage financial backers and threaten the future of her pioneering community work.

Wald fortifies herself by reliving the "impossibles" she has achieved, revealing the private person rarely glimpsed behind her public persona. We witness her dynamic struggles with President Wilson, her major benefactor Jacob Schiff, her mentor—nurse educator Lavinia Dock, one of her favorite campers Little Ernie Brofsky, civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois and her beloved intimate friend Mabel Hyde Kittredge.

The play was commissioned and produced by Woodie King, Jr. to celebrate the centennial of the settlement house movement in 1986 at the New Federal Theatre (in the original Neighborhood Playhouse). Lillian Wald: At Home on Henry Street starred Tony-Award winner Patricia Elliott and was directed by Bryna Wortman. A video of the production can be seen at the Theatre on Film and Video Collection, Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts. The script is published in Clare Coss' LILLIAN WALD: PROGRESSIVE ACTIVIST (The Feminist Press 1989) with her speeches and selected correspondence.

Dramatic Readings (Partial listing) by Clare Coss

National Association of School Nurses Convention, Cincinnati, June 2003
University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, March 2003
Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, Tucson, March 2003
Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, National Congress, Goddard College, June 2002
Maxwell School of Public Policy, Syracuse University, October 2001
RWJ Executive Nurse Fellows Conference, NYC, April 2001
Westport Historical Society, Westport, Connecticut, April 2001
The Peace History Society, The Nobel Institute, Oslo, Summer 2000
The Hague Appeal for Peace, The Netherlands, Spring 1999
N.Y.State Association School Nurses, Rochester, April 1996
Southwestern Missouri University, March 1996
Smithsonian Institution, Dangerous Women Series, National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C., 1993
Public Health Nurse Centennial, Portland, Oregon, May 1993
Department of Nursing, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, March 1993
Department of Nursing, Messiah College, February 1993
School Nurses Convention, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 1992
Registered Nurses Association of Vancouver, British Columbia, 1991
Public Health Nurses of Texas, Austin, 1991
National Public Health Nurse Faculty, Chapel Hill, 1991
University of Arizona Honors Convocation in the Humanities, Tucson, 1989
National Women Studies Association Conference, Baltimore, 1989
National Student Nurses Convention, Cincinnati, 1989
SUNY at Old Westbury, NY, 1989
Symphony Space, NYC, Benefit for Sigma Theta Tau, International Honor Society of Nurses, 1988
The Feminist Press, CUNY Graduate Center, 1988
N.Y. State Convention of Nurses, Buffalo, 1987
Five College Women's Studies Project on Feminism and Difference, Smith College, 1987
The Women's Funding Coalition, Women and Philanthropy, The Foundation Center, NYC, 1987
Benefit for Techo, Educational and Cultural Center for Central American Refugees, Tucson Ecumenical Council, 1986
Association for Women in Social Work, NASW, Atlanta, 1986