Lysistrata Project Organizer Acts out "The Accidental Activist"

The lights dim and a woman, cloaked in black, a mask disguising her face, runs down the aisle. In a strong voice, she chants. And just as abruptly as the women entered, Katherine Blume, the co-founder of the Lysistrata Project, and the creator of "The Accidental Activist", removes her mask and cloak.

"Just kidding!" she announced, as she reveals herself. The monologue continued in this genre, with humor gracefully intertwining with the true story of Blume’s transition from being a self-described political impotent to organizing one of the most successful theatre based anti-war actions of all time.

The play begins a little more then 2 months before March 3^rd, the date of over 1,000 staged readings of Lysistrata across the globe. Blume, frustrated over the aggressive, pro-war stance of the Bush administration, churns through different methods of dealing with her moral opposition. She clearly perceives herself as impotent to affect the road to war. She tells an antecedent about a rally she attended in New York City, describing it as comical and unpersuasive. She also speaks about letters she wrote to foreign newspapers, apologizing for her countries stance and assuring them that Bush’s positions are not those of the entire populace. Neither of these options seems to be effective.

She finally settles on theatre as her medium. She remains indecisive and seemingly unmotivated to she sits down with her mother-in-law during her Christmas vacation. A therapist, her husband’s mother gives her both motivation and the solid advice that, "Attainable is better then unattainable."

Combined with the advice of her mother-in-law was the inspiration she receives from seeing a Sudanese woman speak about the attempts she and other Sudanese women had made to stop the rampant violence in that nation by withholding sex from their husbands until the men ceased to make war on each other. This parallels the plot of Lysistrata, which Blume has been working on an adaptation of. This speaker catalyses Blume into the realization that Lysistrata, a work that she is intimately familiar with, is the perfect solution.

After she returns to her home in New York City, she seizes into action. She finds a similarly minded acquaintance who just happens to have an "in" with a local theatre, and goes to work raising money and planning the shows. One of the most powerful moments of the show comes as she stands before the audience with a legal pad, reciting statistics of the month prior to the show. After the number of website hits, planned readings, and endorsers increase, so do the excitement levels of both Blume and the audience. After this scene, which encompasses a brief glance at the readings, the play settles down into its falling action.

After the huge success of the Lysistrata readings, Blume brings her play towards its conclusion. She candidly depicts her uncertainty on how to proceed from this moment. And just as she arrived at the idea for the Lysistrata Project, the "Accidental Activist" is born.

- Ian Sullivan

Katherine Blume (Photo by Ian Sullivan)