Martha Pichey. Photo by Laurie Lambrecht, 2018.

Women and Whaling:  A Salty Mix of Short Play, Tales of Three Who Went to Sea, a Diagram or Two, and a Sea Shanty or Three.
A Multimedia Presentation by Martha Pichey

Come hear playwright Martha Pichey tell the lively tales of three brave women who defied convention and went to sea.  Lizzie Edwards was a whaling captain’s wife from Sag Harbor, Emma Armstrong a young navigator who saved her father’s ship from disaster, and the intrepid George Leonard harbored a secret that took months for fellow whalers to uncover.

The evening will begin with actors reading an excerpt from her new play, Drowning on Dry Land, set in New Bedford in 1871.   Women and whaling is a subject the playwright has wanted to explore ever since her first visits to the New Bedford Whaling Museum as a child.  Her father’s stories about working on the docks in Martha’s Vineyard in the 1930s only added fuel to the fire.   Previously a journalist, her first play, Ashes & Ink, was presented at the John Drew Theater Lab in East Hampton.  It will be produced by women’s theater company Nora’s Playhouse in 2019.