And all the preachers that I knew as a kid. “And then I thought of my own stepfather, who was a preacher. To lock in the proper gravitas, James listened to the stentorian speaking voice of actor Cedric Mays, who played Douglas in the National Park Service’s popular Agitators podcast. “And when they’re arguing, each trying to prove their point, I use a lower timbre so that I know that I’m being heard.” And the sense of conviction that she had, I really wanted to honor that. Her voice gets heavier and deeper as it goes on. “She’s still finding her voice in the first scene,” offers Palmer, “so there’s … not a girlish quality, but somebody who’s still trying on how they want to be in the world – how do I want to present myself? And on the life’s journey that she goes on, as she gets more experienced, there’s a heaviness to her that I felt I needed to express vocally. No recordings exist of either historical figure speaking, which meant the actors had to dig deep into their characters to find their voices. The struggle was very real.Īnthony talks about the uphill battle she and fellow agitator Elizabeth Cady Stanton are fighting to gain similar rights for women. Even – or maybe especially – in the years following the Emancipation Proclamation, and the passage of the 15 th Amendment, giving African American men the right to vote. Douglass talks about his wife and children, his life before he escaped from slavery, and his unswaying commitment to the cause of equality for Black Americans. Much of the dialogue in The Agitators was taken from actual speeches, articles, books and correspondence. So it was really an eye-opening experience.” Obviously we have the cursory knowledge from grade school, who they were, but we didn’t have anything to sink our teeth into and dig into, to get our mitts on. When she first read Mat Smart’s script, Palmer relates, “I was blown away by A, the fact that they were friends and B, how good the script was. With this story, you get a different kind of friendship – a different kind of love story – between the two.” “But when you open that scope with two streamlines together, it’s different and it’s very universal. Because you’re putting them in a streamline. Someone said to me the other night, ‘With history, you never think of these people walking the earth, and actually running into each other.’ Every time you hear about somebody that was great, it’s always their storyline, and nobody else exists. “This project loaned the lens to me to look at it further. “Take what you learn in school – you only get a nice, quick snippet of them,” James says.

But the fact that they were friends and colleagues, and even collaborators at times, that’s in the historical record too – if you look deep enough. That these two influential people existed in the same time period isn’t news. And you see in the story how their ideals came up against each other, and worked together.” “At the end of the day, it humanizes them,” believes L.

“She was a lecturer who had a really crazy schedule that she kept up with, because she was getting the word out: ‘This is how we’re going to change the world.’ By letting people hear these speeches and letting them realize how important it is for women to get the vote.”įar more than a straight-from-the-book history lesson, The Agitators injects the historical facts with personal post-it notes – the two bicker and argue, watch a baseball game and even make each other laugh at times.

“I look at their pursuits, in terms of social change, as their professions,” the actress says. Jennifer Christa Palmer stars as the latter. The Agitators depicts the push-and-pull 50-year friendship of Douglass, the former slave who vigorously and eloquently fought for the abolition of slavery, and women’s suffrage leader Anthony. In every case, one or both of them will be on a train, or out of the area, or giving a lecture somewhere. Monday the 6 th at noon? Wednesday the 8 th at 5? Next Tuesday? A week from Sunday? April something? Anthony, have their schedule books out, pencils in hand, and are attempting to find a date and time to meet. 26, it’s a play about things worth fighting for – as noble and true now as they were then – and on one occasion its protagonists, social reform leaders Frederick Douglass and Susan B. One scene in The Agitators, in particular, telegraphs the throughline that exists between the mid 19 th century and today.

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