About the Play:

The Fighting Days has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Female/Female Scenes, and Female/Male Scenes.

The Fighting Days is a full-length drama by Wendy Lill. The women's suffrage movement of the early 1900s was a testament to the sacrifice of Canadian women to get the right to vote. Set in the 1910's, the play follows Frances Beynon's journey into the Winnipeg feminist movement, where she eventually clashes with Nellie McClung over pacifism and universal suffrage.

The Fighting Days is set in Winnipeg during 1910-1917 and focuses on the life and work of Francis Marion Beynon, a Manitoba journalist and political activist. When the play opens, Francis is on her way to Winnipeg, leaving behind a sheltered and religious rural childhood. Soon after she arrives she meets Nellie McClung and becomes involved in the Votes-for-Women movement. She also begins work as the women's page editor for The Rural Review, airing her controversial political views on the editorial page. While the two women fight together to get women the vote (which they accomplished in Manitoba in 1916), suddenly, Canada is involved in World War I, and the conscription crisis divides the suffragists: should immigrant women have the vote, or just British and Canadian-born "Dominion women" who are sending their husbands and sons off to battle? Should women use their votes to push for conscription or to lobby for a swift end to the war? Their friendship and political beliefs are tested. Nellie supports the war, conscription and giving only Dominion women the right to vote whereas Francis believes in peace and that all women should vote. A play about polarities of public and private lives, about issues of racism and pacifism within the women's movement which still echos today, The Fighting Days strikes a delicate balance between politics and humanity.

Fighting Days premiered in 1983 at Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg and played to packed houses, followed by a Manitoba provincial tour, a remount run in Winnipeg; and a tour to Toronto and Ottawa. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 1 male

What people say:

"The Fighting Days, by Wendy Lill, is a fascinating take on the life of this largely overlooked suffragist and political activist." — The Sackville Tribune Post

"Intelligent, witty, and genuinely moving. The Fighting Days is a superb entertainment, the comedy is genuine, the dramatization of ideas impressive." — Winnipeg Free Press

"…The Fighting Days really transcends its documentary roots and gets to the human heart of the story." — CBC Radio

"An unusually insightful investigation of social conscience." — Arts Manitoba

"Knockout play." — Winnipeg Sun

About the Playwright:

Wendy Lill is a Canadian playwright and former parliamentarian who worked in various parts of Canada, finally settling in Nova Scotia. Her experiences in journalism and broadcasting influenced and encouraged her to "fictionalize real incidents and events." She has been described as a writer of "contemporary social issues with a clear-cut women's perspective." Her plays are produced in professional and community theatres and universities across Canada and internationally.