Women wearing the red robes and white bonnets of fictional Handmaids will take a silent walk along Main Street in Carnegie Friday evening, in defiance of recent incidents at Carnegie Stage.
The storefront theater at 25 W. Main St. and home of Off the Wall Productions held a June cabaret, with proceeds going to Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania. The event drew several male protesters who stood outside the theater with graphic anti-abortion signs. Then, in late July, Off the Wall presented “Sex Werque,” a solo show by Westmoreland County native Moriah Mason, a stripper who went on to become a dancer-choreographer. She created the piece “to humanize strippers and sex workers,” with proceeds from ticket sales to one show also going to Planned Parenthood.
The result was someone “slapping a pornography label” onto the theater entrance, under the poster for the show, said artistic director Virginia Gruenert, who runs Off the Wall with her husband, Hans. The still unidentified person was caught on camera, and Off the Wall plans to prosecute for criminal mischief, Ms. Gruenert said.
The walk Friday, starting at 5:15 p.m., was organized with the help of The Handmaid's Resistance and UltraViolet, described on its website as “a community of people mobilized to fight sexism and create a more inclusive world that accurately represents all women, from politics and government to media and pop culture.” The Handmaid’s Resistance began earlier this year, with small groups of women protesting an escalation in anti-abortion measures.
The protest in Carnegie follows the model of the national movement, with women walking in pairs, wearing red capes and white bonnets inspired by Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel and Hulu web series about a dystopian future in which females are subjugated to reproduce for the upperclass. UltraViolet provided Off the Wall with eight Handmaids costumes for the walk.
Ms. Gruenert said it will demonstrate that Off the Wall “will not be swayed from our mission,” which includes nurturing and empowering women theater artists. “We are here. We are not going away,” she said.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
First Published: August 10, 2017, 10:40 p.m.
