MILFORD, PA — A performance of the short play “Cornelia in Confidence,” starring Patricia Durante, will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday, August 18, in the Foundation Room of the Pike County Historical Society’s Columns Museum.
Following the play there will be a dinner with cake and coffee to commemorate Cornelia Bryce Pinchot’s birthday.
Cornelia Pinchot, wife of Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot, was a 20th-century American environmentalist, Progressive Party politician, and women’s rights activist. She was a founding member of the Committee of 100 and a major donor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) educational and legal aid funds during its early years.
Pinchot has been described by some historians as “one of the most politically active first ladies in Pennsylvania history.”
Cornelia in Confidence is a staged interpretation of a radio show by Cornelia Pinchot. She hosted a regular show when she lived in Washington DC after the death of her husband. The topics she covered often had to do with conservation – but in the play, when a guest cancels, she has to fill airtime and decides to speak to her audience “in confidence”, giving them an insight into her life and times as a passionate women’s rights activist and politician, as well as a wife and mother.
Actress Patricia Durante, who plays Cornelia, will then join the audience for dinner to answer any questions and enjoy a piece of birthday cake and coffee.
The play was written by Lori Strelecki and directed by Jeffrey Stocker, as a joint project of the Pike County Historical Society and the American Readers Theatre, and is funded by a grant from the Greater Pike Community Foundation.
Tickets for dinner are $45 per person. Seating is limited.
The museum is located at 608 Broad Street.
For more information, call 570/296-8126 or email [email protected].
