In the initial stages of my Gena Branscombe project, creative thoughts and plans seemed to come to me like never before in my life. There was finding Gena’s music, researching her life, making the recording and then, one evening I attended an off-Broadway performance of Elizabeth Perry’s one-woman show, “Sunflower.” I sat in the theatre watching, listening, and enveloped in the life story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. A woman……wife, mother and suffragette activist bar-none and the reason women now have the right to vote. Elizabeth Perry wrote and starred in her own show. Her knowledge of Mrs. Cady Stanton was inspired, her attention to detail in portraying a woman from over 100 years ago - impeccable, and her passionate acting made one feel the very essence of this important historic woman. Leaving the theatre knowing my future would be telling Gena Branscombe’s life story in a one-woman show, though, mine would include music, I had to figure out how this was going to evolve....
