Time Traveler’s Club, Manhattan Division

Written and directed by Barbara Kahn

Theater for The New City February 23-March 12 2023

The Time Travelers Club sends a woman named Dolly from the present on a journey to 1870 Greenwich Village. An equipment malfunction leaves her stranded in the past, where she encounters real-life characters while attempting to find her way home. Poet Emma Lazarus was at the beginning of her prestigious career. Composer Georgina Schuyler was a descendant of Alexander Hamilton and early Dutch settlers. The nature of the close friendship of these unmarried women from disparate backgrounds leaves room for speculation. Famous actress Charlotte Cushman and her “wife” sculptor Emma Stebbins stopped in New York en route to Boston where Charlotte sought treatment for breast cancer. Sarah Smith was a widowed African American school teacher who boarded in a building on 13th Street—a building that survives but is threatened with demolition in today’s rush to gentrify our historic neighborhoods. When Dolly fails to return home, her wife Alice (Arianne Banda) attempts to rescue her and bring them both ‘back to the future.’  The play is a gentle homage to “The Wizard of Oz.”