2012 Season

The Education of a Rake

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Written by William Bivens
Directed by Jan Zvaifler
Produced in: 2012

A Central Works Method Play developed in collaboration with Sally Dana, Gary Graves, Gabrielle Patacsil, Eric Reid, Gregory Scharpen and Jan Zvaifler.

A new play from local playwright William Bivins (winner of the 2009 Bay Area Critics Circle award for best original script, Pulp Scripture) whose work “bristles with an offbeat irreverent inventiveness” (Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle).

Congressman Roy Armstrong has a plan to pass the Equal Rights Amendment once and for all.  But he has a problem…and she’s about to go public!  Will he go down in history as the “feminist” who won equal rights for women in America?  Or as a scoundrel who couldn’t keep his privates in his pants?

Background of the play: The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) simply states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”  The ERA was first proposed in 1923, without success.  It took almost 50 years before Congress finally voted to approve the amendment, but it fell just 3 states short of ratification.  It’s been re-proposed in every session of Congress since 1982, and yet the Equal Rights Amendment is still not part of the U.S. Constitution.

This production is made possible with the generous support of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and Wilder Green Fund.

This play is available for licensing! Please contact us for details.

Sally Dana*
Gabrielle Patacsil
Eric Reid

Stage manager: Stephanie Henderson
Costume design: Tammy Berlin
Lighting design: Gary Graves
Sound design: Gregory Scharpen

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Press will be added soon.

Read about ERA history and the “3–state strategy” for ratification.

Political sex scandals: Who survives, who crashes and burns? (Washington Post, June 5, 2011)