JANE: ABORTION AND THE UNDERGROUND

NEW & NEWISH:

As of fall 2023, the play has had 7 full productions and at least 17 readings, including at 8 colleges, since 1999. The newest production, which has been Jeff-recommended, was by Idle Muse at the Edge off Broadway in Chicago from September 16-October 15, 2023. The Hyde Park Herald listed it as a pick for fall 2023 Chicago theater. Rave reviews summarized in Theater in Chicago in Chicago Reader, Third Coast Review, Buzz Center Stage, Around the Town Chicago, and Chicago Stage and Screen.

Nora Sissenich of the Forward did a great job with a profile on my 30-year odyssey with the play.

In early 2023, Jane had its first reading in a state with a near-total abortion ban, by the Village Rep Theater in Charleston, South Carolina.

In 2022, (HBO) Max premiered the documentary, The Janes, to which Paula contributed a source, Crystal, from her play research. (The film was co-produced by the son of Jane member Judith Arcana, Daniel Arcana.)

In 2022, the Jane play had five productions of some kind, including at Temple University and UCLA and a filmed co-production with Cat’s Cradle and Coalescence Theater online to benefit the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project. That also included a staged benefit reading at Berger Park in Chicago by Violet Surprise, directed by Iris Sowlat.

In 2020, two scenes were published in the first anthology of abortion literature, Choice Words, edited by Annie Finch, published by Haymarket Press. Early that year, the play also had three sold-out readings with the Connective Theater Company in Chicago. See related interview with Kerry Reid of Chicago Reader with Paula about challenges and triumphs in staging abortion.

Pre-pandemic: The play was covered in American Theatre Magazine and Playbill for a fall 2019 NYC off-Broadway celebrity reading with Cynthia Nixon, Monique Coleman, Kathy Najimy and others. The play also named as recommended play on reproductive rights by NPX/National New Play Network.

While the overall structure remains the same, the play was revised in 2019 for the NYC reading for more clarity of complex events, to require fewer actors, and to reflect current events, and the passing of two key Jane members, Jody and Ruth.


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Photo from Golden Gate Planned Parenthood production at Brava Theater, San Francisco"

Photo from Golden Gate Planned Parenthood production at Brava Theater, San Francisco"

- “We are women whose ultimate goal is the liberation of women in society. One important way we are working toward that goal is by helping any woman who wants an abortion to get one as safely and cheaply as possible under existing conditions.”— Jane pamphlet, 1969-1973

- “We wanted to create an atmosphere that was empowering in a situation that was normally very disempowering. We wanted to give women some ammunition in their lives, and by acting directly, show them it was possible to take action on their own behalf and on behalf of other women. —Anonymous, The Jane Collective (from Abortion without Apology Nina Baeher, South End Press, 1991

SYNOPSIS:

Newly revised version with fewer actors (7) needed!

Drama, two act; at least 6 women (at least one African American), at least one man (doubling for both genders required); one simple set possible; offers ethnically diverse roles and strong roles for younger women.

Running Time: Just under two hours with intermission.

***PLUS: Three adapted brief versions by feminist theater companies:

  • 90-minute 2020 version edited by Middlebury student Taite Shomo.

Photo from Golden Gate Planned Parenthood production at Brava Theater, San Francisco"

Photo from Golden Gate Planned Parenthood production at Brava Theater, San Francisco"

A timely and provocative part-documentary drama about “the best-kept secret” in Chicago, “Jane,” an underground abortion service that operated from 1969 to 1973.

After learning about the network from fellow activists in Chicago, Paula started researching Jane in 1991. Since 1999, its official world premiere in Chicago with the Green Highway Theater Company at the Chopin Theatre, it has been performed dozens of times across the U.S. and Canada. Her interview transcripts are available at Special Collections departments at Northwestern and Duke University libraries, and have been quoted in many books. A scene and a few monologues are featured in a few “best of” Smith & Kraus anthologies for 1999, and a scene was recently excerpted in the book, Choice Words, the first abortion-literature anthology.

The script is based on Paula’s original interviews, including very rare interviews with women not in Jane who used the illegal service. This network, run by a feminist collective of mostly middle-class housewives and students, was the one safe alternative for an estimated 8,000- 11,000 Chicago women of all backgrounds (as reported by Jane members). In all those years, “Jane,” which boasted no fatalities and operated in private apartments throughout the city, was well trusted by and commonly received referrals from police, university administrators, social work, clergy and hospital staff. Writing about play’s premiere production (which was picketed by anti-abortion protesters) in fall 1999, Chicago Reader critic Kim Wilson said: “Everyone — but women especially — should hear this story.”

Gives an inspiring and unapologetic story — too relevant today — of feminist resistance and organizing to meet women’s most immediate and critical needs. The play also reveals how even under the best of circumstances, illegal abortion can be harrowing.

 See testimonial from Annika Speer, co-director of 2011 Santa Barbara Production.

HIGHLIGHTS in recent years (pre-pandemic):

  • Play named as one of nine recommended plays on reproductive rights by playwright Rachael Carnes for the National New Play Network

PRODUCTION AND PUBLICATION HISTORY (MOSTLY):

  • World premiere by Green Highway Theater Company at the Chopin Studio Theater, Chicago, August 1999. See video here.

  • Two monologues accepted for publication The Best Stage Scenes 1999 (Smith & Kraus, 2000)

  • One scene accepted for publication in The Best Women’s Stage Monologues 1999 (Smith & Kraus, 2000)

  • Production by Millennium Theater Company at the Bartell Theater, Madison, Wisconsin, June 2001.

  • Readers’ theater production, Winona State University, Minnesota, January 2003.

  • Readers’ theater production, Northeastern Illinois University, April 2004.

  • Production, Florida State University, Tallahassee, January 2003.

  • Productions, College of William and Mary, Virginia, March 2003, March 2005 and November 2007.

  • Production, Golden Gate Planned Parenthood, Brava Theater, San Francisco, January 2005.

  • Monologue published in Millennium Monologues: Voices of a New Age (Meriwether Press, 2002).

  • Semi-finalist, Moondance Film Festival, Stage Plays Category, named November 2000.

  • Finalist, Columbine non-violence award, Moondance Film Festival, January 2001.

  • Reading, Venus Theater Company, Washington, DC, October 2005; and at George Washington University, January 2006.

  • Excerpted performance by 20 Percent Theatre Company, Chicago, at the Pilsen Arts Walk, Chicago, October 2005; and at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, January 2006.

  • Full production by 20% Theatre Company, Chicago, at the Side Studio, February 17-March 24, 2007.

  • Full production by the Santa Barbara Pro-Choice Coalition and students from UCSB at the Center Stage Theater, 2011. Co-directed by Annika Speer, author of a 2013 Frontiers journal article about the play.

  • Staged reading, at Pride Arts Center, Chicago, July 24, 2017. Directed by Iris Sowlat. Co-sponsored by Shout Your Abortion 773 and the Chicago Women's History Center. For YouTube video, click here

  • Featured in scene showcase with Right Brain Theater Project, Chicago, July 2018.

  • Two scenes (scenes 2 and 3 from Act II, included in first anthology of abortion literature, Choice Words, due out in 2020 with Haymarket Press. Edited by Annie Finch.

  • Celebrity benefit reading at off-Broadway Rattlestick Theatre starring Cynthia Nixon for the pro-choice actors group, A is For, founded by Martha Plimpton and Kellie Overbey. September 2019

  • Reading at KRASS (Kathie Rasmussen Women’s Theatre) in Madison, WI. September, 2019.

Significant RESEARCH:

Research for the writing of Jane includes a detailed, original investigation into its past and many interviews with those who were on the scene. This includes leaders of the group and, most rarely, women who used the service in various stages of the network. The drama, a historical documentary, is stitched from original interview transcripts, fictionalized reenactments of conversations, and historical documents, such as a script for a “witch”-led abortion-rights street theater by the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union and front-page newspaper coverage of “The Abortion Seven.” The research is so valuable that it was used by the makers of the PBS documentary, Jane: An Abortion Service, which aired in 1998. (Author Paula Kamen is credited as providing some of the film’s research.)

Photo from Golden Gate Planned Parenthood production at Brava Theater, San Francisco"

Photo from Golden Gate Planned Parenthood production at Brava Theater, San Francisco"

THE STORY: BEYOND THE SURFACE AND THE RHETORIC:

In its suspenseful drama and occasional dark humor, this play tells an important story of both Chicago and reproductive rights history. Engaged in the ongoing abortion-rights debate, the play presents the much needed and forgotten point of view of women, discussing the real threat to their lives and human dignity when abortion is illegal. The play also connects the group to its roots in the New Left, civil rights and women’s health movements — which become clear even to a non-political audience. Many characters were involved in all these movements, such as Micki, a black civil rights worker who was a legal aide in the Chicago Conspiracy Trial and let “Jane” use her apartment in the Kenwood neighborhood for the procedures. (The play also explores connections to the underground Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, run by E. Spencer Parsons, former dean of Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago, interviewed for the play.)

Jane is also about the power of collective action to make change in women’s lives. By cooperating together under stressful circumstances, Jane made a normally traumatic and “criminal” situation into an empowering one, where women often learned for the first time vital information about their own bodies and feminism. Especially in later years, the collective gave personal treatment to patients, giving them health information, such as copies of the first editions of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and emotional support through the process. Jane also was radical in demystifying and taking control of the abortion process, which was considered the exclusive domain of the male medical establishment.

Yet, while addressing politics (which are inextricable from the characters’ lives), the play is NOT AN “ISSUE PLAY” — and concentrates on telling stories rather than on polemics. The play explores many complexities of the abortion issue, as well as of the main characters involved, most of whom were mothers at the time. The playwright does not “whitewash” the abortion experience of people who used Jane, often including voices critical of this home-grown service. In this play, the complexities of abortion rights are revealed in twists and turns of the plot. Nothing is as it seems on the surface: a minister and pregnant women are abortion-rights activists; a policewoman knocking on the door of The Service is seeking an abortion, not an arrest; and the abortion doctor is revealed not to be a real doctor.

“Jane” was started by Heather Booth (later a leader in the Democratic National Committee), then a leader of campus activism at the University of Chicago, who is credited with forming more early Second Wave feminist groups than anyone else. (She is also the subject of a 2017 documentary.)  Because of her contacts in the civil rights movement, a friend asked her to find a doctor to help his sister, who needed an abortion. Soon, the word spread throughout activist communities of her connection to a doctor, TRM Howard, and she found herself setting up a counseling and referral service. When returning calls to women, she used the code name “Jane.” When the workload became too much, she sought the help of other activists, many of whom were drawn to the emerging “women’s liberation” and women’s health movements. Eventually, “Jane” officially became a part of the greater women’s movement by affiliating with the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, a groundbreaking socialist-feminist umbrella organization, founded in 1969.

Gradually, the women of “Jane” (or “the Service”) began assisting the abortionists and learning the procedures on their own. Meanwhile, they found out that the abortionists they were using were not real “doctors,” as promised, further demystifying this procedure. In 1969, they took over performing the abortions themselves, charging less than $100 a piece and helping the poorest women in the city. After a long period of surveillance, in 1972, police finally busted the Service. But before the much-publicized “Abortion Seven” could go on trial, the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision released them from charges and “Jane” dissolved.

 


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Photo of Brava Theater, site of 2005 San Francisco Production

Photo of Brava Theater, site of 2005 San Francisco Production

2023 production in Chicago

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