What to Expect and How to Prepare

All Signature in the Schools productions explore the connection between the past and the present and aim to do so in ways that respect the maturity of the students attending the performances. The Voices on Blackwell Island explores institutional abuse of women and includes detailed discussions of and mild depictions of violence and trauma. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the material and to take advantage of the exercises and articles available throughout this site and the Educational Resources site for students to ensure your students are prepared for the production and able to debrief on the production in a safe and enriching way.

Tips for Engaging with The Voices on Blackwell Island at Signature Theatre

Our invitation to you is to resist the urge to lean back. Lean forward! The act of watching the production, of being an audience member, can be just as artistically challenging and rewarding as the work of making the show itself!

Signature in the Schools wants to shake things up with these “Rules of Engagement.” You, dear audience member, are an essential part of this production.

The intention of these “Rules of Engagement” is to encourage audience interaction with the show: laughing, clapping, even a “mm-hmm” wouldn’t be out of place here when something big happens on stage. Our team wants you and your students to engage with the actors to help create a new kind of theatre experience for the actors and the audience.

Going to the theatre for a show is a communal event. A big group of people come together to share not only the same space, but the same energy as well!

SIGNATURE IN THE SCHOOLS RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

• This piece may prompt some noises of agreement or disagreement. Applaud when impressed, laugh when it’s funny, cry when it’s sad and clap when it’s all done. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it!
• This is also live theatre, and the actors need you to engage with them, not distract them or thwart their performance. The same goes for your fellow audience members. They want to hear and see everything happening in the show too!
• Silence or turn your phones off. You’d be amazed by how loud even just a phone vibrating is. And when you look at your phone in the dark, everyone can see you looking at it. Be present in this moment because it’ll be over in a flash.
• This is a chance to be together and to form a community in a shared space. Let’s go.

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Discussion Questions

• The Voices on Blackwell Island focuses heavily on the traumatic suffering of the women who live in the asylum. What might be the benefits of highlighting the suffering? What is our responsibility in helping others who may be suffering?
• In the play, Nellie spends much of her time listening to the stories and experiences of others. The play concludes with an invitation to participate as activists. Why do you think listening may be an essential part of being an activist?

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Glossary

Defining people, places, things and ideas mentioned in The Voices on Blackwell Island

• Ailments – A bodily disorder or chronic disease; unrest, uneasiness.
• Andrew Tate – An American-British Internet personality and former professional kickboxer. He later rose to fame as an online influencer and his commentary on social media has resulted in his bans from several platforms.
• Another nail in the coffin – Idiom. Another negative event or action that leads to one’s downfall or to something’s failure.
• Asylum – An institution providing care and protection to needy individuals and especially the mentally ill.
• Blackwell’s Island – An island in New York City’s East River, within the borough of Manhattan. For much of the early 1900s, New Yorkers nicknamed the island Welfare Island after the asylums, prisons, and almshouses that were built there.
• Charity – An institution engaged in relief of the poor; generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering.
• Chloral – A bitter white crystalline drug used as a hypnotic and sedative or in knockout drops.
• Chronic – Continuing or occurring again and again for a long time.
• Committed – Placed in confinement.
• Conjecture – A conclusion put together by guesswork and evidence.
• Consciousness – The quality or state of being aware of something within oneself.
• Consent – To give approval.
• Contorted – To twist in a violent manner, as if into a strained shape or expression.
• Convalescent Ward – A facility where patients whose physical abilities have deteriorated due to injuries or diseases receive rehabilitation for the purposes of eventually returning to society, home, the workplace.
• Convulsions – An abnormal violent and involuntary contraction or series of contractions of the muscles.
• Debility – Weakness or infirmity.
• Delusional – A consistent false psychotic belief regarding the self, people or objects outside the self that is believed despite evidence to the contrary.
• Discretion – The quality of being discreet or subtle.
• Doublespeak – Language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of the truth.
• Eavesdropping – The act of secretly listening to something private.
• Exposé – A formal statement of facts designed to reveal a previously hidden (usually shocking) truth.
• Facilities – A bathroom or toilet.
• Feign – To give a false appearance of; to assert to be true; to pretend.
• Fiancé – A man engaged to be married.
• Gaming the system – Using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to, instead, manipulate the system for a desired outcome.
• Hypothetical – Based on a suggested idea or theory, not proven.
• Hysteria – Behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess.
• Hysterical – Feeling or showing extreme unrestrained emotion.
• Ingenious – Marked by originality, resourcefulness, and cleverness in conception or execution.
• Initiation – The rites, ceremonies, ordeals or instructions with which one is made a member of a group or is invested with a particular function or status.
• LGBTQ – Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer / questioning (one’s sexual or gender identity.)
• Lucid – Having full use of one’s physical and mental abilities.
• Masquerading – To disguise oneself.
• Morphine – A bitter crystalline addictive narcotic base that is the principal element of opium and is often used as a sedative.
• Pleasantries – An agreeable playfulness in conversation; a polite social remark.
• Protocols – A detailed plan of a scientific or medical experiment, treatment or procedure.
• Public hearing – An official meeting where members of society hear the facts about a planned activity, policy, etc.
• Rounds – A route habitually covered (as by a security guard, officer, or nurse).
• Sashaying – To strut or move about in an obvious manner.
• Scheme – A plan or program of action.
• Sedate – To dose with medicinal sedatives.
• Seizure – A sudden attack of the nervous system.
• Sensational – Arousing or tending to arouse a quick, intense and usually superficial interest, curiosity or emotional reaction.
• Slags – Lewd or promiscuous women.
• Trumps – A decisive overriding factor or final resource.
• Vengeance – Punishment inflicted in retaliation for an injury or offense.
• Ward – A division (such as a cell or block) of a prison or hospital.
• Workhouse – A place maintained at public expense to house needy or dependent persons.
• Zealous – Enthusiastic about a person, cause or an ideal.

Dictionary by Merriam Webster, Encyclopedia Britannica, Web