Women+ On the Edge of Democracy

Union Arts Center and SIS Productions are excited to join the initiative Women+ on the Edge of Democracy created by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. Past Susan Smith Blackburn prize finalists and winners were invited to write 10-minute plays in response to two urgent questions to be included in a published anthology.
What is the current state of democracy in America from a national and international perspective?
What can history, global context, or futurism offer us in this pivotal moment?
We invite you to experience a few select readings written for this anthology and gather as a community to reflect on the state of democracy as we approach the midterm elections.
More information about this national movement can be found here.
We hope you’ll join us for this free event!
Sunday, October 25, 2026
Bullitt Cabaret
3-5pm
To see additional Women+ on the Edge of Democracy readings, you can join SIS Productions at:
West of Lenin on Sunday, November 1 from 4:30-6pm
University Heights Center on Monday, November 2 from 7:30-9pm
More information can be found here.

Our Program

Act One

Common Ground
Presented by SIS 
By Lauren M. Gunderson 
Directed by Miko Premo 
Featuring Jesse Calixto, Ina Chang, and Kathy Hsieh 
Vicious online trolls collide and unite in this absurdist reckoning of self, society, and theatre’s place as our common empathetic ground. 

Little Houses
By Lucy Caldwell 
Directed by Annie Lareau 
Featuring Alyssa Keene 
On a Belfast day in 1989, on the wagon trail on the Persian carpet in the attic, Louisa’s got just minutes left to live. As three young sisters play at life and death and second chances, the grown-ups downstairs are desperately trying to find escape routes out West too. 

 What Would I Say 
By Leslie Ayvazian 
Directed by Rebecca Touriño Collinsworth 
Featuring Gin Hammond 
A mother. Children. Escape. To where? 

Aggressively Soothing Whale Sounds 
By Sarah Mantell 
Directed by Julie Beckman 
Featuring Kirsten Potter 
I don’t want to write about my family. The last version of this play had whales. Do we still have the cue for the whales?

Act Two

An Uplifting High School Graduation Speech 
By Sarah Ruhl 
Directed by Leah Adcock-Starr 
Featuring Sarah Harlett 
A woman is invited to speak at her Catholic high school in Texas not long after Roe v. Wade is overturned. 

 Nightlight  
By Kimber Lee 
Directed by Ana Maria Campoy 
Music Director Carter Rodriquez 
Featuring Amani Velada (Kaia), Simon Quintero (Danny), Viviana Garza (Narrator) 
Two teenagers fight to find light in a dark place. 

 Searching for Elsie Parrish
Presented by SIS 
By Heidi Schreck 
Directed by Kathy Hsieh 
Featuring Christi Cruz, Mona Leach Grife, and Carol Roscoe 
It’s a story about, to quote Rebecca Solnit (and it’s important to cite the source) “never fucking surrendering.” 

Purchase the full anthology of plays!

A body of work that asks us what kind of world we want to live in, and then challenges us to go about the business of creating it.

Women+ on the Edge of Democracy is a collection of thirty-four new short plays commissioned by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Vermont in partnership with the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. The project brings together past winners of the Blackburn to respond to a shared set of questions about democracy, civic life, and the role of the individual at a moment of profound political uncertainty. The works center women+ as founders and preservers of American democracy. By excavating a variety of topics, the works also position women as necessary leaders for a brighter future.

Thank You to our Sponsors
Sue and Steve Petitpas, Tom and Jeannie Blank, and Frida Kumar