June 22-25 at 7:30pm

The title is The Mill Project and the performance invites the audience to place themselves in history while imagining our shared future.

The Mill Project, presented by Theatre Truck, is an original new play featuring five local actors and was devised by the ensemble using historical research. The result is an exploration of the first generation of American women who worked away from home: their freedoms and exploitations, their strengths and the dangers they faced, and the expectations society held for them.

The play deconstructs the historical record, remembering women’s experience of labor in the textile mills of nineteenth century New England through a “performance-collage” drawing on letters, newspapers, pamphlets and etiquette books. Woven in a tapestry of original music and movement, the play puts the “mill girls” of factory towns like Leeds into relationship with the experience of American women today. The rebellion of these early female communities against exploitation led to the early labor movement in the United States.

There will be four performances, June 22, 23, 24 and 25 at 7:30pm on the Leeds Common across from the historic Nonotuck silk mill. The audience is invited to bring a blanket or chair and a picnic in the tradition of outdoor Summer theatre. This performance is recommended for ages 14 and up. Parking is available in the Chartpak lot. In the event of heavy showers or storms, Rain Date Friday June 30.

Theatre Truck is a collaborative of multidisciplinary artists crafting mobile and site-specific performance, sustainably and playfully. Their inaugural production, The Emily Dickinson Project (2015), took place in the house and grounds of the poet’s Amherst homestead. The Water Project (Immersive) took place in New Salem, MA last September and was set to live music.

Oh sing me the song of the Factory Girl! The honest and fair and true! — J.H. Warland, 1846

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Tickets available at Brown Paper Tickets:
$20 in advance, $15 students/seniors in advance
$25 cash only at the door, $20 students/seniors at the door. For more info contact: www.theTheatreTruck.com

Collage Art by Nancy Meagher