Megan Sandberg-Zakian, at the Boston Women’s Memorial, directed audio performances by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Attorney General Andrea Campbell, which can be accessed at the site via smartphone. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

WOMEN'S MEMORIAL

Women Making History Today Give Voice to Past Trailblazers at Boston Women’s Memorial

BU’s Megan Sandberg-Zakian directs US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and Mass. Attorney General Andrea Campbell

It’s the most powerful cast Megan Sandberg-Zakian has ever directed, and there’s not a Tony Award–winner in the bunch.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell.

Trailblazers and potent advocates for progressive policies and women in politics, all three were at one time on the Boston City Council together. Now they have lent their voices to a previous generation of leaders for the Talking Statues project, a new feature at the Boston Women’s Memorial, on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, between Gloucester and Fairfield streets.

Wu gives voice to Lucy Stone, a prominent abolitionist and suffragist who was the first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree. Pressley (Hon.’21) speaks as Phillis Wheatley, a formerly enslaved person who was the first published African American poet in America. And Campbell portrays Abigail Adams, a close advisor to her husband, President John Adams, and mother of President John Quincy Adams. Sandberg-Zakian, artistic director of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, directed the audio performances

The memorial depicting Stone, Wheatley, and Adams in three statues created by sculptor Meredith Bergmann is a stop on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. Now, thanks to Sandberg-Zakian, they tell their own stories, too. The audio performances are available on smartphones via a QR code at the memorial, which marked its 20th anniversary last fall.

“What I find to be the inspiring part of it is that these women, these extraordinary politicians and leaders, found the project as meaningful and worthwhile as we did,” Sandberg-Zakian says. “They engaged with the material in a way that communicated that none of them were doing it thinking like, oh, this will be great publicity, or, this is strategic. All three of them had done their research on the historical figures and were really moved by the material.

“It’s so permanent, and their terms in office can be much shorter than what this monument will be,” she says. “Honestly, I was intimidated by them, until I realized that we all sort of equally cared about what we were doing. And then it just felt like any other theater thing, where you all care about what you’re doing.”

The recording was done by Dirk Sobotka and Anastasia Lukina from Soundmirror in Jamaica Plain, a Grammy-winning classical music recording and production company founded in the 1970s. Wu and Campbell were recorded in their official downtown offices, Pressley at a district office in Hyde Park.

“It will surprise no one that they are all sort of incredible speakers, so there wasn’t a ton of directing to do,” Sandberg-Zakian says. “I did have the opportunity to offer a few suggestions in terms of audio and slowing down to emphasize certain things, or certain ways of making some of the more anachronistic language a little bit clearer, stuff like that.

“Congresswoman Pressley has actually spoken a lot about Phillis Wheatley as one of the most famous early Black female residents of Boston,” she says. “She had really thought about the character of Phillis and how she would speak. And she really transformed and gave an incredible performance.”

Wu is in some ways very similar to Lucy Stone, Sandberg-Zakian says: “Stone is described as a tiny woman who would charm people with her sweet cadence, but then have these incredibly powerful political ideas. And when I read that, I was like, oh, this is great casting.”

The attorney general is “the least naturally theatrical out of the three of them,” she says, but was also the most moved by the experience of doing the recording. “If I had to say which of them took the biggest leap from the first read through to their final performance, it would probably be her. I think in the end, she gives such an emotionally connected performance.”

Sandberg-Zakian was asked to participate by Meg Campbell, Talking Statues project coproducer and a cofounder of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. Campbell’s daughter works in theater in New York and recommended Sandberg-Zakian.

“It was my daughter who said you really want to have a director,” Campbell says. “Even people who are in the public eye, everybody needs direction. Basically, it makes the reading richer. I had the privilege of watching [Sandberg-Zakian] work, and she has a very delicate touch, but, like, laser focus.”

Sandberg-Zakian says she also benefited from the project. “Things are really hard in the world right now and there are a lot of reasons to despair. But doing this project did give me an opportunity to think about how far we’ve come.

“The fact that Abigail Adams was talking about all these white men making laws and begging them to consider women and Black folks. And here I am, you know, with the attorney general. And it’s just as a reminder that, although there’s a lot of hard stuff going on, there is also change, and progress. So it was meaningful.”

Most meaningful, she says, was that it reminded her that theater and art have power and value in our civic life.

“Sometimes it can feel like, oh, here we are playing make-believe, playing dress-up. And those are my bad days. But what I actually believe is that storytellers shape civic life. And that theater has always been a way of collective reflection, and also, like litigation of the big social questions of our time. This was a demonstration of the power and the meaningfulness of theater and of my personal skill set, working on a new text that’s going to go out into the world and meet an audience.”