"Ladies, How Dare You!" by Liv Cummins & Rob Hartmann at Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts

The Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts (Charter Arts) Theatre Department, in collaboration with the Charter Arts Music Department, continues its fall season with the world premiere production of Ladies, How Dare You!, a musical comedy/farce written by Liv Cummins and Rob Hartmann with music by Rob Hartmann, November 8-10, 2024. 

The story is set in 1913 amidst the Womens' Suffrage Movement with themes and sentiments that will resonate with contemporary audiences, especially during the current political landscape.  This beautifully crafted story is centered around two unlikely traveling companions, wealthy socialite Lucretia Kingsley and her hired hatmaker, immigrant Dorothy Jones, who must make it to the Suffrage Parade in Washington D.C. against all odds.  The heart of the piece lies in the relationships they develop with the people in the small town where their carriage breaks down. As they form connections and invest in one another’s lives, they begin to question their preconceived notions of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be an American, and what it means to build community.  All are affected and eventually inspired to find a new path forward, bravely paving the way for change.

With direction by the school’s Artistic Director of Theatre, Kelly Minner-Bickert, and music direction by the Artistic Director of Vocal Music, Erica Dickson, this production of Ladies, How Dare You!, will move audiences with its rollicking ragtime Americana-flavored score, old-fashioned vaudevillian hijinks, disguises, and Shakespearean mistaken identities as it explores themes of gender roles, anti-immigrant sentiments, and urban and rural clashes. 

Minner-Bickert shares, “Audiences will be blown away by the talent of our young artists who have courageously taken on these characters for which there is no blueprint. Watching our kids rise to the challenge of such a deep and layered new work has been exhilarating. With powerful and poignant music and lyrics, I’m certain audiences will leave feeling moved and thoroughly impressed.”

Liv Cummins says, “Ladies, How Dare You! tells the personal story of one woman, rather than trying to address the struggles and injustices experienced by so many from that time.  Offering new themes to the group of current historical musicals which explore cultural shifts, Ladies How Dare You! elucidates the intersectionality between antisemitic racism and classism through a Polish, Jewish immigrant’s eyes, as well as the urban and rural divide so prevalent in our country today. The musical reveals what it is like to be “the other” in this country, how so many immigrants, the economically challenged, and those on the fringes of society experience a need to code switch just to get by on a day-to-day basis. Ladies will expand theater audiences for the stories of women and others who battled and continue to battle cultural forces for social change.”

This is the second time that the school’s theatre department has produced a Cummins/Hartmann musical collaboration, having been the first high school to produce the team’s musical fantasy, Vanishing Point in 2019.  Minner-Bickert adds: “Rob Hartmann came to see that production and was incredibly impressed with the talent of our students and the direction of the show.” She adds, “When the two felt that Ladies How Dare You was ready for an audience, they reached out to us again with the offer to  premiere their new project. We were thrilled and honored.”

Ladies, How Dare You! Performances:  November 8 & 9 at 7 PM, November 10 at 2 PM.  Tickets are $7-$12 and can be purchased in advance at CharterArts.org.  Charter Arts is located at 321 East 3rd Street, Bethlehem.