The Class 10 students worked diligently and creatively on their Drama Main Lesson play Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale, which was performed in the beautiful Kalamunda Performing Arts Centre on Thursday 13 March 2025 at 11.30am and 6.30pm.

The play followed four female undergraduates at Girton College, two miles from Cambridge University, in 1896, fighting for the right to graduate with a qualification alongside the male students. Set against the backdrop of the first wave of feminism and the suffragette movement—when women were protesting in the streets, demanding the right to vote and freedom from the constraints of a heavily armoured and entrenched patriarchal system—the play highlighted the courage and vision of women whose efforts paved the way for change across the Western world, even though much of that change would not come until well into the 20th century.

Blue Stockings opened with four young women—Tess Moffat, Celia Willbond, Carolyn Addison, and Maeve Sullivan—arriving by train at Cambridge University. They were young, eager, and feisty, with their sights set on the pursuit of knowledge and learning. Rather than follow the expectations of their time—marriage, child-rearing, and domesticity—they chose a different path: that of the pioneer. And the path of the pioneer is one that demands courage and a willingness to push against rigid systems of thought. These young women worked doubly hard to achieve their academic dreams, at times needing to reconsider romantic inclinations and brace themselves against criticism and abuse from both men and women.

At that time, academic achievement for women in the Western world was ostensibly unattainable. Men attended university, gained knowledge, and graduated in cap and gown with degrees or certificates. Women, however, though completing the same courses alongside the men, were denied certification. Worse still, their pursuit of knowledge often made them unmarriageable, unemployable, and labelled with the derogatory term “blue stocking”—a name for a woman who was learned or academic.

In the play, newly appointed headmistress of Girton College, Mrs Welsh, along with her deputy, Miss Blake, and the students, launched a pioneering campaign for the girls’ right to graduate.

The Class 10 students worked closely together as a team of performers and musicians to deliver an outstanding performance of Blue Stockings. In addition to developing their dramatic and musical skills, the students explored representational theatre techniques, embodied identifiable characters, and gained insight into the social challenges and changes that took place in Britain at the turn of the 20th century.

This production was the collective effort of an exceptional group of young people from the Class 10 student cohort, supported by Parkerville Steiner College staff: Katina Bay (music), Janice Still (costume), Eva Rinaldi from Perth Waldorf School (costume), and Katie Turner (Class Assistant), who contributed her artistic skills to painting and prop development. Simon Griffiths led the set build. Together, staff pooled their extraordinary and creative talents to bring to life this topical and relevant play—Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale.