

Stripping the Yellow Wallpaper
Valerie Flower and Katherine Reid
September 12–14, 2019
2019 Fringe Festival
Runtime TBA
Cost TBA
First Unitarian Church of PhiladelphiaMap
September 12–14, 2019
A contemporary twist on “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the feminist ghost story that first illuminated the horrors of facing mental illness alone.
Audience members are invited to stay for a brief 20 minute talk back at the end of each performance to share their reactions to the piece.
Pay what you wish $10 – $20/ 50 minutes
Stripping the Yellow Wallpaper highlights the themes of mental health and feminism springing from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s semi-autobiographical short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” First published in 1892, it chronicles a woman’s descent into madness from “the rest cure,” prescribed for her severe postpartum depression. Our play weaves in the resonant and discordant work of other feminists from Gilman’s time and our own, including philosopher Mary Whiton Calkins and playwright Adrienne Kennedy.