‘Liberation’s’ take on the women’s right movement
The Philadelphia Theatre Company has ties to New York and Broadway. Magar had directed plays in New York before co-leading PTC, and the theater has developed works with Broadway aspirations, such as “The Tattooed Lady.” “Night Side Songs,” which PTC premiered in 2025, opened off-Broadway earlier this year.
Magar is working with Broadway star BD Wong to develop a new version of Tennessee William’s “Glass Menagerie,” which will premiere at PTC next spring.
But “Liberation” came out of the blue.
Magar went to New York City last year with her husband and co-artistic director Tyler Dobrowsky to see the play with no intention of bringing it to Philadelphia.
“We are really good friends with the director of the original production, Whitney White,” Magar said. “We went to support her and sort of stumbled into: ‘Oh my god, we have to do this play.’’ And then: ‘Oh my god, I have to direct it.’”
“Liberation” is set mainly in a basement gym in Ohio in the 1970s as a group of women meet weekly to discuss women’s rights as a personal goal and a social movement. It is loosely based on the playwright, Wohl, who wanted to investigate the life of her own mother, now deceased. The play jumps in time from the 1970s to today, grappling with the successes and failures of the movement.
“I think it’s deeply funny. I think it’s deeply engaging. I think it’s incredibly moving and wonderfully insightful,” Magar said. “And really singular. You don’t encounter plays like this. I feel like it’s made its own world. The way that it’s talking about women in the ‘70s and now is so incisive.”
Neither Magar nor Wohl was alive during the second-wave feminist movement. But Gayle Smith was. She is a retired attorney who saw “Liberation” in New York and said it rings true to her experience as a young lawyer in the 1970s.
“Absolutely true,” Smith said. “In my second year in law school I got married in Florida and I went to the grocery store and to cash a check. I had an ID for law school and I kept my maiden name. They told me that I didn’t have the proper ID and that my husband would have to approve my check. This was 1973.”
“I remember being involved in a class-action case where I was the only female,” she added. “I was arguing a case and the judge looked at me and said, ‘Miss Smith, you’re almost at the end of your argument. But I couldn’t deny such a pretty face. I’ll give you a few more minutes.’ All I could think of is: ‘Okay, shut up and just finish your argument.’”
Smith is a supporter of Philadelphia theater, generally, and Philadelphia Theatre Company in particular. She is an honorary producer of “Liberation” at PTC and urged Magar to direct the show as soon as possible.
Smith said it is both sad and poignant that “Lilberation” opens five weeks after the death of Gloria Steinem, a towering figure of the feminist movement central to the play.
“She was a feminist, but I think what people forget is she was a civil rights activist and a humanist,” Smith said of Steinem. “She fought so many battles. This show shows a lot about not just the women’s movement, but about human rights and how we need to work together. I don’t think that we understand the value of that.”
During the run of “Liberation,” the lobby of PTC will have displays detailing how the women’s rights played out in Philadelphia. The theater company has partnered with Women’s Way, a Philadelphia nonprofit for women’s equity, to display artifacts from its archives. Women’s Way is now celebrating its 50th anniversary.
“Girl from the North Country” runs at the Arden Theatre until Oct. 25. Philadelphia Theatre Company’s “Liberation” runs Oct. 9–25 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre.