Every Archive, A Stage
View the transcript of the above carousel of letters.
It all clicked for Isabelle Pizzurro as she sifted through the archives at Anderson Library, in search of Jewish women’s perspectives on abortion in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “It could be a play,” she thought; after a year of dedicated historical research, scriptwriting, and rehearsal, it was. In spring of 2025, Pizzurro presented L’Chaim (To Life): A Full Length Play about Reform Jewish Feminist and Efforts to Repeal Criminal Abortion Law, 1967-1975 as a culmination of interdisciplinary work at the intersections of history and theatre. We got a chance to talk with Pizzurro, a recent graduate of the history department, about her research process, playwriting, and the future of interdisciplinary historical work.
Q: How did you decide on a research topic?
A: As I read and researched the women’s rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I couldn’t help but wonder, where are the Jewish women? So I went to find them. I began this search in spring 2024 as a junior, thrilled to be enrolled in Dr. Welke’s Reproductive Rights and Justice capstone course. Little did I know this class would be the catalyst for a research project that would change the trajectory of my life and career aspirations. On our first class visit to the Social Welfare History Archives at Anderson Library, I coincidentally selected a box containing pamphlets from the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. These pamphlets included a Jewish perspective on abortion, written by men, among commentary from religious leaders of other Christian denominations. And I couldn’t help but wonder, where are the Jewish women?
Q: Historians are always trying to find gaps in our understanding of the past — in unexamined evidence, alternative methods of interpretation, or a new framing of a particular period. What gap in history did you hope to address?
From this interfaith pamphlet and witnessing modern Jewish feminist activism for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, I asked: Were religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment used by American Jewish women in their efforts to decriminalize abortion before Roe v. Wade? After reading secondary literature by historians, I noticed that the group of Jewish women who were consistently absent or separated from their Jewish identity were those practicing in the Reform movement. I refocused my question to fill that gap in the literature: How were Reform Jewish women advocating for the repeal of criminal abortion laws before Roe v. Wade?
Q: Your project engages in such an innovative mode of work. How did you decide on theatre as a medium?
A: I quickly recognized that archival documents and photographs contain natural theatrical possibilities. “It could be a play,” I thought. Through conversations with Dr. Welke and multiple visits to the University of Minnesota Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, I realized that I needed a longer period of investigation, beyond the scope of the capstone course, to tackle the massive undertaking I had begun: amending the historical record. With Dr. Welke’s support, I applied to and was awarded the Hedley Donovan Scholarship from the University of Minnesota Department of History.
The question I asked myself before embarking on this interdisciplinary journey was: How does what we know about the history of Reform Jewish women and abortion rights transform when shared through theatre? I realized that by taking the audience into the history, they understand by emotionally experiencing the circumstances of the past through the characters.
Q: Historical research can often feel overwhelming and unwieldy. There is always too much to look at and never enough time! How did you plan and carry out research for this project?
A: The support of the Hedley Donovan Scholarship allowed me to implement the skills in research and historical interpretation I had honed in Dr. Welke’s capstone course. I traveled to multiple archives across the East Coast, including the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute, the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History, the Dorot Jewish Division and the Manuscripts and Archives Division at the New York Public Library. I also accessed digital oral history archives at the University of California Los Angeles Oral History Archive and Smith College Special Collections. In August of 2024, I conducted several oral history interviews with women in Southern California who took part in efforts to repeal criminal abortion laws.
Q: What was it like moving between traditional historical research and playwriting?
A: Playwriting felt like the natural progression to this research. Archival work contextualized the oral histories I conducted. Furthermore, playwriting expanded my understanding of the primary source material. My tentative argument evolved as I wrote the play titled, L’Chaim (To Life). When rehearsing the play with actors from the UMN BFA Actor Training Program, I learned more about myself as a historian and theatre artist. I realized that by combining my areas of study, acting and history, I can more closely investigate how identity influences choice, which often results in documentable change.
Q: What was your playwriting process?
A: The beliefs, relationships, and sometimes core values of these women changed over this seven-year period of abortion repeal efforts. So, I imagined the emotional lives of four Reform Jewish women using historical interpretation of archival documents and oral histories. For example, the American Jewish Congress’s (AJC) archive contains the work of women on staff council: letters, case briefs, and handwritten notes on papers for filing. There are no diaries or physical material that document their personal opinions or feelings on abortion. It was their writing that provided the groundwork for my playwriting. From these documents, I created Beverly Levitt, a character based almost entirely off of physical archival documents. There was a letter sent to AJC begging for help obtaining an abortion for his wife. (See featured images at the top of the article.)
In response to this three-page letter, staff council wrote two sentences, including a message of “Good luck” that appears to be written later, the type offset suggesting that the writer returned later. Documents akin to this were the jumping-off place for character development and script. Staging the script revealed new challenges, particularly the ending, which I answered creatively through staging and adjusting the script.
Q: How did you bring the script to life?
A: When writing L’Chaim (To Life), I had very clear stage pictures in my mind. Working directly with the actors allowed me to immediately discover if my vision was going to work. The collaboration between myself and the actors was strong and fruitful. The cast and I created a rehearsal room environment that transformed the work of the play from our determination to uplift these histories of great urgency.
Throughout the rehearsal process, I realized that as director I also held the responsibility of dramaturg: to ensure the actors understood what and why their characters said or reacted in the way they did. Hearing the questions the cast had based on only the script revealed to me as the playwright which sections of the play weren’t specific or revealed new history to the audience.
An additional element, that I would be remiss not to mention, is humor. I remember an audience member told me after the play something akin to, “I wasn’t sure if I could laugh because abortion is so serious, but some parts were written to be funny, right?” There were several moments I intentionally included humor to keep the audience engaged and quickly develop dynamic character relationships. There is a long history of Jewish humor used to familiarize the unknown, to cope with suffering, and create community.
