A new exhibit at the Elmhurst History Museum has inspired a series of free performances created to bring the stories of prominent Chicago area women to life.
In honor of the exhibit “History of Her: Women Who Shaped Chicagoland,” featured at the museum through Aug. 9, members of GreenMan Theatre Troupe will portray the women who helped shape the region.
Debbie Proska, of Lombard, will portray Bertha Honore Palmer on June 20; Kathi Campbell, of Brookfield, will portray Audrey Wagner on July 11; and Victoria Rebeck, of Naperville, will portray Frances Willard on Aug. 8. The free drop-in events will be at 2 p.m. at the Elmhurst History Museum, 120 E. Park Ave.
Director Carolyn Thomas-Davidoff, of Western Springs, wrote the Palmer monologue. The other two monologues were written by Sharon Bopp, the publicist for the Elmhurst-based GreenMan Theatre Troupe.
Proska said that she wanted to be part of the events because “I know that Elmhurst History Museum always has high-quality exhibitions so I’m proud to be involved with them anytime I can.”
She said she would be happy to portray any of the women, but she is especially glad that she was chosen to portray Palmer.
“She was a very accomplished woman,” Proska said. “She had a lot of responsibility and she seemed to handle it all with grace.”
Palmer managed the Palmer House Hotel for many years, including being responsible for decorating the hotel. In addition, “She headed up the committee for the Women’s Building at the Columbian Exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair,” Proska said. She also ran a successful ranch/farm in Florida.
Proska also praised Palmer’s generosity in bequeathing so much of her art collection to the Art Institute of Chicago.
“Chicago would not have the worldwide known collection of impressionists if it were not for Bertha Palmer and her husband Potter,” writer Thomas-Davidoff declared.
“She loved the impressionists before anybody else did,” Proska added.
Campbell, who is portraying Audrey Wagner, said she wanted to participate in the “History of Her” program as a way to dive deeper into her studies.
“My master studies are in historic preservation architecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and so I’m very much interested in the history of Chicago,” she said.
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Campbell praised Wagner’s role playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. “She saved the money that she earned and it paid for her degree at Elmhurst College, which now is Elmhurst University,” Campbell said. “She then went on to the University of Illinois to get her medical degree and became an ob/gyn.”
Thomas-Davidoff said Wagner “concentrated so intensely on her studies while playing baseball part-time. It took some guts and some courage and a heck of a lot of time management to be able to do all of that.”
In addition, when she lived in Crescent City, California, Wagner was elected to the Crescent City Council. She was also a photographer and a pilot.
Campbell said that people attending the three presentations will learn how these stories “fit into the history of Greater Chicago.”
Rebeck, portraying Frances Willard, said she’s “really excited about focusing on women who made a real difference in the area in so many ways that influenced society.” Rebeck said. She said that she is especially excited to be playing Willard, “for all the things that she’s done.”
Willard, who lived in Evanston, was an educator, temperance proponent and suffragette.
“Her motto was, ‘Do everything,’” Rebeck related. “That meant if she had something that really mattered to her, she’d do everything she could to promote it.”
One of her driving interests was fighting for women’s right to vote, Rebeck said. Another was promoting temperance realizing alcoholism could destroy families.
“She argued for the eight-hour workday,” Thomas-Davidoff added. “But what she’s best known for is that she was for a long time the president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.”
“In some ways she was ahead of her time,” Rebeck said. “I hope people will take from her energy and her hopefulness about what can be accomplished,” Rebeck said.
Thomas-Davidoff concluded that these three performances will be “bringing to life, in an entertaining and positive ways, the History of Her.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.