Shout! Poetry for Suffrage

By Alexander Valdes | Published by October 16th, 2019

As the medium that allows one to explore the inner workings of their hearts and illuminate the past, Shout! is about poetry for women’s suffrage and the struggle that they endured in order to gain the right to vote. 

On Oct. 2, auditions for this event were held where students came to perform some personal pieces of their own as well as speak about the pieces in relation to women’s suffrage that they would then perform in the show. The show is being manned by Dr. Susanna Rich and Professor Ernest Wiggins. 

Sunanda Kaushik, who was manning the sign-in table, had an opportunity to voice her opinions and provide some insight on the goals of Shout!

“The goal of Shout! is to get the audience to think about all the different historical figures, what they contributed to the movement, and why it was such an important issue to women,” said Kaushik. “We walk through in their footsteps because the show is in the first-person of these activists and you get to see how they tackled the same issue from multiple points and multiple perspectives.”

Shout! is a way to give audiences a deeper insight into the inner struggles that activists had to endure in order to bring rights to women. With the show being in a first-person perspective, one can step into their shoes and view the world how they saw it, back in a time when these issues were very prevalent. 

“The thing about poetry is that it allows for flexibility to write it in the first-person perspective and to give you that feeling of being in their shoes,” Kaushik said. “Poetry is a more emotive mode for something like this, especially because it’s not just presenting those historical contexts and research anymore. It’s when the actor performs it and puts a name to that face and those achievements, to the suffrage and rights that women were fighting for, it also allows you to say the most while having to say the least.”

Sunanda had a little more to say in regards to what the goal for Shout! is and what exactly it is trying to accomplish, and how exactly the show attempts to attain that goal.

“Part of the goal of Shout! is when you read through the poems and say them aloud,” Kaushik said. “When you say I am Susan B. Anthony, it forces you to think and see things from another perspective and you have to challenge yourself. You have to think about how has society changed ever since the suffrage movement now.”

Some of the performers who auditioned had time to also give their thoughts about the show and why they came to the audition, such students being Khali Raymond who is a junior transfer student.
“I do have a prevalent background in theatre and I do poetry,” Raymond said. “I’m also an experienced writer and I really love the arts, it really helps me to express myself.”

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