Adams Gallery Putting On Play Based On Local Mill Workers
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The gallery in the former Waverly Mill will be putting on the 2004 play based on local history. |
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ADAMS, Mass. – The 5 Hoosac Street Gallery will feature the play “Maids in the Mills” this weekend.
Author Peter Bergman said the play, originally showed in 2004 in Pittsfield, is based on the history of women immigrants who worked in Pittsfield's woolen mills.
“The stories are all real with people who actually worked in the mills; the names are changed, but the people actually lived,” Bergman said.
The play follows the lives and mistreatment of Polish and Irish immigrant women in the mills and spans from 1870 to 1912. It depicts the oppressive conditions immigrant women faced under mill owners, men, and other women who demanded total obedience.
Bergman said it focuses on both the creation of the Industrial Workers of the World and the unions in Massachusetts in 1912.
He said this production marks the tenth anniversary of the play and the production will feature some of the original actors and actresses.
Bergman said the play has been very well received and is excited to bring it to the 5 Hoosac Street Gallery, which formerly was the Waverly Mill. Currently the gallery is displaying the “Mill Children” exhibit which shows both art and historical photos representing the oppressive conditions children faced in the mills.
“I am excited about having it in Adams,” he said. “The mill is a wonderful the setting and it just resonates.”
Bergman said Adams’s mill stories may differ than the ones in Pittsfield but they are both connected
“Adams had a cotton industry which helped downplay and diminish the wool mills in Southern Berkshire and of course the mistreatment of workers is shared,” he said.
Bergman said the play is ever-changing and new parts will be added to this showing.
Bergman said even though the play takes place over 100 years ago, it still resonates in today.
“When we did the play we still discovered poor treatment of immigrant workers in the mills in Boston,” Bergman said. “Since then we have found similar cases all over, and it is as if even though it is 117 years later the issues the play discloses are still happening. We are looking at history from a new perspective of a world that hasn’t altered much.”
The one act play will show Friday, October 17 and Saturday, October 18. Both shows start at 7:30 and run one hour and twenty minutes. Tickets are limited to 50 seats. Tickets bought in advance cost $10 and tickets bout the night of the show cost $15.
For more information call the Gallery at 413-776-7487.
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