Until the opening of Inwood Hill Park in 1926, Manhattan’s still-rural northern tip was dominated by institutions and asylums—a symptom of the Progressive Era that shepherded in a new emphasis on “social hygiene.” Among these were the Magdalen Benevolent Society (later renamed Inwood House) and the House of Mercy, which together serve as the basis for the reformatory depicted in benevolent.

I lived off of 172nd while drafting this play, and spent many a fall afternoon making the hike up to Inwood Hill Park to stroll along the Hudson, marvelling at the fact that I was looking out at the same Jersey cliffs that the inmates might have gazed at a century earlier. These musings were quashed when I learned that the towering boundary walls blocked all view of the river.

Even so, just being at the site made me feel a connection to the women who had once been confined there. I tried to find out more, but most of the existing records—trial transcripts, newspaper clippings, and intake records that neatly categorize inmates as either “subnormal,” “psychopathic,” “hysterical,” “alcoholic,” or “criminalistic”—failed to provide the full picture.

The joy and challenge of benevolent has been filling in the blanks between the bald, sanctimonious language used by their captors to craft characters that I hope reflect the vibrance and resilience that these women possessed. The years separating us seemed to fall away as I worked, and I came to feel a deep kinship with the challenges they faced.

We’re performing barely five blocks from the former Planned Parenthood Health Center on Bleecker Street, whose closure last year left Manhattan without a permanent Planned Parenthood facility. The first birth control clinic in America, located in Brooklyn, closed almost as soon as it opened in 1916—a year before the events of the play. That clinic was shuttered under the auspices of the Comstock Act, a law that today threatens the distribution of mifepristone and misoprostol for medical abortions.

The urge to categorize and condemn women for their sexual and reproductive choices persists across the centuries. One play won’t change that. But the conversations that have arisen around our work on benevolent have inspired and encouraged me, and it’s my dearest hope that you’ll have the same experience after leaving the theater.

Thank you for supporting indie theater—and enjoy the show.

Best,

Sophie McIntosh, Playwright