Pre-Show Preparation, Questions for Discussion, and Activities

Note to Educators:  Use the following assignments, questions, and activities to introduce your students to Mrs. Packard and its historical basis, context and themes, as well as to engage their imaginations and creativity before they see the production.

Activities and Questions Which Focus on Reading, Reasoning, and Research
  1. “Giving Voice to the Voiceless.”* According to the playwright and director Emily Mann, she was inspired to write Mrs. Packard after reading a one-page synopsis of the life of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard; she was shocked by the fact that in the nineteenth century “a woman could be thrown into a lunatic asylum in this country simply because she disagreed with her husband.”  Mann was also surprised that she had never even heard of the woman, despite the fact that Elizabeth Packard had been a prominent women’s and civil rights activist, reformer, lobbyist and author of books and religious treatises in her time.  Mann notes, “My plays often are about giving voice to the voiceless,” and with Mrs. Packard, Mann recovers the housewife turned crusader’s voice and stunning story for a twenty-first century audience.  The linked activities below are designed to allow your students to experience and explore what it means to not have a voice.

    Part One:  Suppression

    A.  Begin class by telling students that a new rule regarding class participation is to be instituted straight away and that they no longer have the right to speak in class.  Students should be instructed that class will no longer include discussion debates, asking questions and working in groups, but instead they will be lectured to by the teacher only.  Advise students that it is best that they sit quietly, listen carefully and let you do all of the talking and decision making.  They should also be notified that if they have an opinion about something then they will have to keep it to themselves.  Tell them that the room will remain quiet at all times.  Ignore or silence any students who object to the new rule.

    B.   Conduct a portion of class (perhaps a vocabulary lesson or explanation of new terms) with these rules in effect.

    C.  Eventually, ask students to take out a piece of paper and make a list of the feelings they have about the new class participation rule.  Students may not talk or work together, but they must create the list.  Once their lists are completed, inform students that the institution of the new rule was simply a way to introduce them to the topic for the day:  “Giving Voice to the Voiceless.”

    Part Two:  Expression
    Ask students to share their list of feelings resulting from having their voice in class suppressed.  Discuss why they had these feelings.  Ask them to offer other examples from their lives when they had a similar experience or feelings.  Ask them to imagine what it would be like to be treated this way everywhere and all of the time.  Ask them to imagine what such suppression would do their psyche and spirit.

    2. Part Three:  Reflection
    Work with students to brainstorm on the board a list of groups whose voices and very beings have been suppressed in the past or who are currently being suppressed.  Discuss whether these instances of suppression were ever considered socially acceptable and by whom.

  1. Women’s Rights:  Then and Now.*  At the heart of Elizabeth Packard’s story, as chronicled in Emily Mann’s Mrs. Packard, is her fight for the most fundamental rights of liberty:  freedom of expression, thought and belief and freedom to manage her own self and affairs.  Packard’s life and fight for personal liberty and social reforms were historically framed by the Women’s Rights Movement in the United States of America.  The following linked activities are intended to prepare your students for Mrs. Packard by deepening their level of understanding of the play’s historical context and the issues at stake for women then…and now.

    Part One:  Then 

    A.  Working individually or in groups, have your students research the history of the Women’s Rights Movement and other allied social reform movements in the United States.  Research topics could include:  The Cult of Domesticity/True Womanhood, the Seneca Falls Convention, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Women’s Bible, voting rights for women, Mary Church Terrell, Frances Wright, the Abolitionist Movement, Lucretia Mott, the Temperance Movement, Dorothea Dix, the Settlement House Movement, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, Minor v. Happersett, the Women’s Trade Union League, Carrie Chapman Catt, Women’s Journal, National American Woman Suffrage Association and the Nineteenth Amendment (compare with the Fourteenth Amendment). [For an excellent resource of information on women’s involvement in social reform movements, see SUNY Binghamton’s excellent web site “Women and Social Reform Movements 1600-2000” at http://womhist.binghamton.edu.]

    B.   Have each student or group present their research to the class.  Following all of the presentations, have the class create a list of rights or issues supported by the Women’s Right Movement.  These could include: the right to vote, to receive an education, to own property, to negotiate contracts, to testify in court, to serve on a jury, to earn an income, to file for divorce, to obtain child custody, to receive equal pay for equal work.

    Part Two: Now
    A.  Ask your students to consider what issues U.S. women are still fighting for today.  Brainstorm a list of these on the board.  Issues might include:  equal pay for equal work (i.e., the glass ceiling), women in combat, lack of importance or representation of women in history, equal opportunity in upper management positions (especially Fortune 500 companies), women in high political office (especially the U.S. Presidency), reproductive rights, money for research focusing on women’s health, achieving tenure in academia, particularly the sciences  etc.  Ask your students to consider if true gender equality has been achieved in the United States.  Have them explain their responses.

    B.   Have your students compare the issues confronting American women today with those of women throughout the world.  Working individually or in groups, have your students do some preliminary research on global women’s rights to come up with a list of significant topics and/or issues challenging the women of the world today.  Online avenues for research can include the following web sites: 
    - United Nations’ Women Watch   http://www.un.org/womenwatch
    -  Amnesty International  http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/index.do
    -  International Women’s Health Coalition  http://www.iwhc.org/

    C.  From the list of topics generated, have your students choose an issue of greatest interest or significance to them.  Have each student conduct deeper research on her/his topic of choice and develop an informed opinion in the form of a thesis statement.  Utilizing the thesis statement as a jumping-off point, students should write an editorial (in the third-person singular) in which they first explain their issue objectively, then provide opposing viewpoints, next refute the opposition and develop their own case—utilizing facts, figures, details, quotations, and finally suggest a realistic solution.  If appropriate, student editorials should be read to the class aloud and discussed. [Beyond the Classroom:  Students should be encouraged to champion the cause of global women’s and human rights by submitting their editorials to the school or local newspaper for publication.]

  1. To Love, Honor, and Obey? :  The Rights (or Lack Thereof) of Married Women Before 1920.* 
    Following the extraordinary, true-to-life ordeal that is the basis for Emily Mann’s Mrs. Packard, Elizabeth Packard’s platform for women’s rights and social reforms included a plank which focused specifically on the rights of married women, or, more accurately, the lack of rights or agency for married women. Indeed, Packard entitled her personal account of her kidnapping, confinement, and the trial and its aftermath as Marital Power Exemplified, or Three Years Imprisonment for Religious Belief.  The following primary source documents (provided  via hyperlink for your convenience on our web site; go to www.mccarter.org then click on Education, then Resource Guides, then Mrs. Packard trace the history of the rights of married women in America from British colonization to the Nineteenth Amendment:

Divide your students into groups and divvy up the above documents (they are of varying lengths) so that the reading work-load is shared equally among groups.  Have students read their assigned portion and outline their most salient points for presentation to their classmates.  As a class discuss the progression of married women from suspended “legal existence” to autonomous citizen.

Ask your students to ponder the following questions: 

  • Why did it take so long for women to achieve equal legal and voting status as their husbands? 
  • Why did husbands have so many rights over their wives? 
  • Why do you think the American colonies used British laws? 
  • What is the basis for the Seneca Falls Conference Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions and how does it compare to the document it springs from? 
  • Why do you think women involved in the abolitionist movement and other reform movements shifted their attention from the abolition of slavery and temperance to women’s rights? 
  • How does The Married Women’s Property Act and the Supreme Court’s decision in Minor v. Happersett exhibit changes in the rights of women? 
  • How do you think the Married Women’s Property Act changed the everyday lives of married women in New York in 1848? 
  • Why do you think the Supreme Court ruled against women having the right to vote? 
  • What did getting the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment mean to women?

1.    “Giving Voice to the Voiceless: Part II.”  In the spirit of playwright and director Emily Mann’s artistic mission to give voice to the voiceless, ask your students to contemplate someone they know, have heard of, or have come across in their studies or free reading who was born or rendered voiceless and/or powerless due to personal, political, or social oppression.  Have them write a first person monologue from the perspective of that person which details the person’s situation of oppression or repression, what it was like having no voice, how s/he found or claimed her/his voice, and what it is that they want people to know about her or him or what it is that s/he wants most to say. 

If a student’s subject is an historical figure, research might be necessary.  If a student’s subject is living and available for an interview, the student should be encouraged to interview and record the subject utilizing the points above as questions (e.g., What was your situation or oppression or repression?; What was it like having no voice?; How did you claim your voice?, etc.); A monologue can be crafted by the student from the transcript of her or his interview.

Students’ monologues may be read/performed for the class and their subjects, situations  and themes discussed.

2.    A Theater Reviewer Prepares.  A theater critic or reviewer is essentially a “professional audience member,” whose job is to report the news, in detail, of a play’s production and performance through active and descriptive language for a target audience of readers (e.g., their peers, their community, or those interested in the Arts). To prepare your students to write an accurate, insightful and compelling theater review following their attendance at the world premiere of Emily Mann’s Mrs. Packard, prime them for the task by discussing the three basic elements of a theatrical review:  reportage, analysis and judgment.

  • Reportage is concerned with the basic information of the production, or the journalist’s “four w’s” (i.e., who, what, where, when), as well as the elements of production, which include the text, setting, costumes, lighting, sound, acting and directing (see the Theater Reviewer’s Checklist).  When reporting upon these observable phenomena of production, the reviewer’s approach should be factual, descriptive and objective; any reference to quality or effectiveness should be reserved for the analysis section of the review.

  • With analysis the theater reviewer segues into the realm of the subjective and attempts to interpret the artistic choices made by the director and designers and their effectiveness; specific moments, ideas and images from the production are considered in the analysis.

  • Judgment involves the reviewer’s opinion as to whether the director’s and designers’ intentions were realized, and if their collaborative, artistic endeavor was ultimately a worthwhile one.  Theater reviewers always back up their opinions with reasons, evidence and details. 

Remind your students that the goal of a theater reviewer is “to see accurately, describe fully, think clearly, and then (and only then) to judge fairly the merits of the work” (Thaiss and Davis, Writing for the Theatre, 1999).  Proper analytical preparation before the show and active listening and viewing during will result in the effective writing and crafting of their reviews.

*Some of this material was adapted from Classroom Resources for Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony on the PBS.org web site. 04 April 2007 http://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony