ATTENTION
The alley behind the Museum is scheduled to be re-paved April 14 – May 16. The Museum’s parking lot will be inaccessible during this time.

Plays on History

Join us weekdays, June 16th -Aug 15th, every half hour from 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. for Plays on History! In partnership with the Lawrence University Theatre Arts program, “Plays on History” will be performed in the galleries throughout the summer. The three short vignettes deliver historical dramas that have shaped the lives of ordinary Wisconsinites. In a quarter of an hour, visitors are able to make a personal connection to history. Suddenly, the objects in our exhibits become less static as they create the context of the story about to be told. The past takes on a very tangible presence.

The “Plays on History” program has been a popular and powerful summer offering at The History Museum - we hope you enjoy them!

The Plays

Rural Free Delivery (RFD)

Showtimes: Mondays and Fridays at 12:00 and 1:00, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11:30 and 12:30.

Rural Free Delivery is a story of how rural mail delivery aided the long-distance romance of a World War I soldier and “his girl.” It causes visitors to consider what their lives might have been like without home mail delivery, to reflect on the ways that Rural Free Delivery enabled communication between family members and friends, and to see ordinary people, like a RFD mailman, as everyday heroes to people in historic rural Wisconsin.

The Wonder of It All

Showtimes: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11:30 and 12:30.

The Wonder of It All is a play about the world-renowned magician, Harry Houdini. Houdini’s escapes inspired awe and wonder in spellbound audiences. Houdini was a complex character who encouraged myth-building about his life and whose acts reflected a new age of “Modernism.” Learn his story through the eyes of two 1920 college student fans and contemporary students studying his mastery of the modern media.

Quarantine

Showtimes: Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 12:00 and 1:00.

In our “Quarantine” play, set in the museum’s 1940s era doctor’s office, Museum guests can experience the mixture of joy, fear, and hope that accompanied early administrations of Jonas Saulk’s polio vaccine. They learn that Outagamie County had one of the highest incidences of polio outbreaks in the U.S. in the summer of 1955. Often visitors make an emotional connection to the museum exhibits and share stories about their childhood fears of polio or summers spent cooped up in their own yard or home.