{"id":356590,"date":"2026-07-29T19:20:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T19:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/356590\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T19:20:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T19:20:58","slug":"powerstories-powerup-staged-reading-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/356590\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerstories&#8217; PowerUp Staged Reading &#8220;Conscience&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-264168 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Power-Up-1024x294.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"294\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Margaret Chase Smith was a woman of firsts: In 1940, she was the first woman elected by the state of Maine to serve in Congress; nine years later she was the first woman the state elected to the Senate. And in 1950, she became the first senator to stand on the Senate floor and publicly rebuke Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who rose to power using post\u2013World War II anti-Communist hysteria and ruined the lives of those who opposed him. Margaret Chase Smith\u2019s \u201cDeclaration of Conscience\u201d speech was a public act of defiance at a time when both Democrats and Republicans were cowed into silence for fear of retribution. It came at a cost: She was shunned by her colleagues, challenged in a primary, all while McCarthy threatened to expose her personal secrets. Conscience is the story of a remarkable woman who stood up for what was right and refused to back down. The play explores themes of political power, integrity, and the courage it takes to speak truth to power, set against the backdrop of the American \u201cRed Scare\u201d and \u201cLavender Scare.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All Staged Reading Performances<br \/>Fri Aug 14 \u2013 7:30pm (6:30pm opening night reception charcuterie table)<br \/>Sat Aug 15 \u2013 1pm<br \/>Sun Aug 16 \u2013 3pm<\/p>\n<p>For more information and tickets,<a href=\"https:\/\/powerstories.com\/conscience\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Margaret Chase Smith was a woman of firsts: In 1940, she was the first woman elected by the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-356590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}