Can’t Scare Me: The Story of Mother Jones coming to UCCS THEATREWORKS

Obie award-winning stage and screen actress Kaiulani Lee will bring her one-woman play, “Can’t Scare Me: The story of Mother Jones” to select Colorado theaters including UCCS May 12-17.

Lee’s play tells the story of Irish immigrant Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, a labor activist in the early 20th Century who agitated for improved working conditions and rights for miners, steelworkers, textile workers and others. She was actively involved with the events that led to the coal miners’ strike of 1913-14 in southern Colorado, which included the Ludlow Massacre in 1914.

The performance received rave reviews when it debuted on Washington, D.C., stages in 2011. The Washington Post called it a “tart, handsomely-wrought solo show,” saying that “Lee makes the early miners’ and steelworkers’ strikes feel real and immediate, especially the murderous violence unleashed against unionized workers in the early 20th Century.”

DC Theater Scene called it “simply the best one-person show we’ve seen in many a year. [Ms. Lee] is at home with the character she embodies, behaving gently and solicitously when her labor union charges need grandmotherly advice, but then erupting into a full-blown radical rabble-rouser when she climbs the barricades. It’s an awesome performance, a phenomenal realization of a bigger-than-life historical character.”

The UCCS performance will be:

• 7:30 p.m. May 15, THEATREWORKS, Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater, University Hall. Tickets are available by calling 255-3232.

Other locations are:

• 7:30 p.m. May 10, Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, Denver. Tickets are available by calling (303) 296-0219.
• 7:30 p.m. May 13, El Pueblo History Museum, Pueblo. Tickets are available by calling (719) 583-0453.
• 7:30 p.m. May 17, Trinidad Junior High School, Trinidad. Tickets. Tickets are available by calling (719) 846-4534

The performances are part of the United Mine Workers of America’s centennial remembrance of the Ludlow Massacre, which will include events and ceremonies at the Ludlow National Historical Site on May 17 and 18. This performance is part of the Ludow Commemoration.

–Beth Seymour, THEATREWORKS