"Well-behaved women seldom make history".
This quote from Pulitzer-Prize winning American historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich sets the premise of the paradoxically named Well-Behaved Women, a musical theatre production currently showing at Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre in Surry Hills.
Described as "a musical feast celebrating the women who refused to behave," Well-Behaved Women imagines how some prominent women may sound if we heard them sing their thoughts.
Eve is one of the "well-behaved" women you'll get to hear from. (Supplied: Brett Boardman)
It was originally devised as a concert in New York, with Michelle Guthrie Presents enlisting director Blazey Best to envisage a theatrical musical.
The cast is made up of Stefanie Caccamo (Into the Woods, Once), Zahra Newman (Dracula, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill), Elenoa Rokobaro (Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, Caroline or Change) and Ursula Yovich (Barbara and the Campdogs), with Sarah Murr (& Juliet, Les Misèrables) on standby.
Ursula Yovich, Stefanie Caccamo, Elenoa Rokobaro and Zahra Newman in rehearsals for Well-Behaved Women. (Supplied: Brett Boardman)
Music and lyrics are by Carmel Dean, who said she had never thought of herself as a political person before, but felt compelled to use her voice.
"I decided to tell the stories, through song, of the countless women who've come before us who have been shamed, silenced and ignored," Dean said.
"Women who've had to fight with everything they've had just to make a tiny change which, in many cases, decades or centuries later rippled into a seismic shift."
Additional lyrics are by Miriam Laube.
Here are five of the many 'well-behaved' women to look out for when you see the show.
Eve
Eve was the first woman according to the Bible. (Supplied: Doctorxgc/Wikimedia Commons)
Eve is featured in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. She was the first woman according to the origin story of Abrahamic religions. She was also the first original rebel whose curiosity is now the stuff of legend.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai is a Nobel laureate. (Supplied: Simon Davis/DFID)
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education activist and at 17-years-old was the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in history. In October 2012, Yousafzai and two other girls were shot by a Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt targeting her activism. Yousafzai was struck in the head by the bullet, becoming a more prominent activist for the right to education once she'd recovered.
Harriet Tubman
Abolitionist Harriet Tubman. (Supplied: Horatio Seymour Squyer/National Portrait Gallery)
Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and social activist who didn't just escape slavery – she came back, again and again, to lead others to freedom.
Cathy Freeman
Olympian Cathy Freman. (Supplied: Nick Wilson/Allsport)
At the 1994 Commonwealth Games in British Columbia, Canada, Olympian Cathy Freeman carried the Aboriginal flags after her victory in the 400m sprint. The next day, there was controversy at home after chef de mission Arthur Tunstall insisted Australians must compete under a single flag. Freeman was defiant and continued to carry both the Australian and Aboriginal flags, including during her victory lap at the 2000 Olympic Games.
Julia Gillard
Australia's first female prime minister Julia Gillard. (Supplied: Roberto Stuckert Filho/PR)
Julia Gillard made history as Australia's first female prime minister in 2010. Five years prior to that, she copped flak over her spotless kitchen with some questioning how a single woman with an empty fruit bowl could lead the country. Later her misogyny speech would make international headlines.
Well-Behaved Women is on stage at the Belvoir St Theatre in Surry Hills till November 3.