Seventeen student dancers and 15 student actors will combine their talents tonight in “The Fire Still Burns,” a production directed and devised by Ohio State dance professor John Giffin.
“The Fire Still Burns” is a historical production which tells the story of female immigrant workers in the early 1900s. The story is set in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and centers around the 1909 Shirtwaist Workers Strike, which resulted in 30,000 workers taking to the picket lines, as well as the 1911 Triangle Factory fire, which claimed the lives of 146 female workers and made the public aware of the working conditions in early factories.
Giffin went to New York and put in more than two years worth of research in preparation for the show. During this time, he went through hundreds of sources – including immigrant autobiographies, newspapers, magazine articles, personal letters, memoirs, textbooks, photographs, interviews and other information sources – to ensure his production was faithful in trying to capture the lives portrayed as vividly, accurately and respectfully as possible.
“‘The Fire Still Burns’ is what I would call a dance-theatre piece,” Giffin said. “In other words, it has text that was taken from autobiographies, biographies, oral histories, dramas and many other sources. There was a lot of text taken from various labor and union leaders of the time.
Giffin’s interest in the subject began with his love of ragtime music. In time one interest turned into another, and he began to explore the history and socio-cultural awareness of the early 1900s. “That time before the first World War is kind of like what we’re going through now; they were contested times,” Giffin said. “You had progressive voices for unionization and better pay and working conditions, especially for immigrants, against the capitalist voices that didn’t want to unionize. It was a very interesting time, and still has importance today.”
While studying documents and slowly building up the story behind what would become “The Fire Still Burns,” Giffin came upon the stories of two women – Pauline Newman and Rose Schneiderman – who would become the central characters of the production, who were largely responsible for starting the whole unionization process for other immigrant women.
Leah Reddy, who plays Newman, identified with her character on a personal level. “I definitely see Pauline Newman as a real inspiration and a hero to me just because of what she did for women’s rights, not only in labor, but what she did for equality for women,” Damschroeder said.
“The Fire Still Burns” opens at 7:30 p.m. tonight in Thurber Theatre at the Drake Performance and Event Center. It continues May 22-23 and May 27-31, and also at 2 p.m. on May 31. Tickets are $13 for general admission; $10 for OSU faculty, staff, Alumni Association members and seniors; and $7 for students.
