By ELIZABETH MARIE HIMCHAK
MARCH 11, 2020 2:43 PM.
With March being Women’s History Month, Poway resident Annette Hubbell said she finds herself especially busy performing a one-woman show she wrote that highlights the life-changing actions of women throughout history.
Hubbell is presenting “Women Warriors” at shows in Encinitas, Lakeside, Chula Vista and Escondido this month, following a three-weekend run during January in Redlands at the LifeHouse Theater. A schedule is available on her website, AnnetteHubbell.com.
The “inspirational” women are among those Hubbell featured in her book, “Eternity Through the Rearview Mirror: How Simple Faith Changes Everything — Seventeen Extraordinary Lives.” Though writing short biographies of 17 individuals, Hubbell said she wrote in autobiographical style. She incorporated many of their quotes to tell their stories. All had credited God for their accomplishments.
Those featured were Galileo Galilei, J. S. Bach, John Newton, Elizabeth Fry, Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, Amy Carmichael, Mary McLeod Bethune, Aimee Semple McPherson, Corrie ten Boom, C. S. Lewis, Gladys Aylward, Louie Zamperini and Johnny Cash.
Hubbell said she did extensive research and the book has more than 600 end notes. After starting with 40 candidates, she narrowed the list to 17 well-known and formerly well-known. Parameters included the person being deceased and crediting God for their actions that changed the lives of others. Including the religious aspect was in part due to her Christian faith, Hubbell said.
She called those featured ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things. The book gives insights into their lives and, if they spark readers’ interest, serves as a starting point for further study.
For the show she picked seven women whose stories she could tell within theatrical and time constraints. She said the idea to put on a show came prior to the book’s 2019 publication when someone asked her to perform a short play about some of the women in her book. Her first show was in 2018.
She said the featured women can serve as role models and inspiration to the audience. Because of this goal, she will soon be performing in women’s prisons throughout the U.S. as part of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Hubbell, a Powegian since 1974, said she had no acting experience prior retiring as general manager of the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District. But a trip to historic East Coast sites inspired her to write and act historical presentations. Since 2009 she has portrayed a fictional woman based on a real Civil War era woman who witnessed events in Gettysburg. She also performs as Eleanor Roosevelt.
Hubbell said the “Women Warriors” set has seven small parlors on stage. She moves among them and changes costume to portray each woman. Further distinctions are made through accents, something she said required extensive research since voice recordings were mostly nonexistent. For example, to present Stowe — who was from Connecticut — Hubbell decided to speak the way actress and Connecticut native Katharine Hepburn spoke. Since the Irish Carmichael stained her face to better fit in among the people in India, she likely also picked up their accents, so Hubbell said she talks with an Indian accent.
The seven women featured in her two-hour “Woman Warriors” show are:
• Gladys Aylward (1902-1970), an evangelical Christian from England who was a missionary in China for many years before moving to Taiwan where she founded an orphanage.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), an American abolitionist and author. Of her 30 books, the most famous is “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that described the harsh conditions of enslaved African-Americans.
• Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), an English prison reformer, social reformer and Christian philanthropist dubbed “The Angel of Prisons.” Fry fought for legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane.
• Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist and civil rights activist.
• Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), a Dutch watchmaker and writer who with her family helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II by hiding them in her home. She and her family was caught and sent to a concentration camp. She survived, but other relatives did not.
• Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), a former slave who escaped and became an American abolitionist and women’s rights activist.
• Amy Wilson Carmichael (1867-1951), originally from Ireland, the Protestant Christian missionary and author worked in India for 55 where she opened an orphanage and founded a mission.