Category Archives: Inheritors

Susan Glaspell’s three-act play, Inheritors, has been revived recently for good reason. Written in 1921, in the aftermath of World War I and the Alien and Sedition acts, it tells the story of three generations of Americans and the erosion of fundamental American rights, particularly free speech, in a time of overt nationalism. The play opens in 1879 with Grandmother Morton’s stories of her pioneering migration west and the taking of rich Mississippi valley land from the Indians, resulting in the Blackhawk war of 1832.
Her son, Silas Morton, an uneducated yet visionary farmer, dedicates a piece of the land to create a “college in the cornfields” in a tribute both to Blackhawk and Silas’s beloved friend, a Hungarian revolutionary and immigrant named Felix Fejevary.

In the second and third acts, the play moves to the “present” – 1920 – and charts a conflict between the son of Felix Fejevary, now a wealthy banker and trustee of Morton College, and Silas Morton’s granddaughter (as well as Felix’s niece), Madeline, a student there. Attempting to gain state appropriations for the college, Felix finds that political protestors among the students, as well as an outspoken professor, must be stifled in order to conform to the “Americanness” demanded by the state. Coming into her true inheritance from her idealistic grandfather, as well as her inheritance as an American, Madeline sacrifices her privileged social position to defend the rights of Hindu students who have been arrested for protesting British oppression of India, as well as those of a conscientious objector who remains imprisoned in a solitary 3 x 6-foot cell, even though the war is over.

Inheritors expresses Glaspell’s lifelong concern with social justice and the delicate balance between law and rights that is fundamental to American democracy. The play evokes questions about what it means to be an American, raising issues central to American identity: individuality, conformity, immigration, racism, and nationalism. In addition, it is a classic coming-of-age story in which a young woman defies her family and her gender to stand up for what she believes in, committing herself to a moral act that will define her adulthood.

ISGS Presents Staged Reading of Inheritors at ALA 2025, Boston

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When Susan Glaspell’s Inheritors premiered in 1921, America was in the throes of a postwar conservative backlash as the “100% Americanism” movement fostered attitudes of isolationism, nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and the suppression of free speech. The play centers on the impact on a Midwestern college campus–with students from India deported for anti-colonial activism, a student imprisoned for violating the Espionage Act, a professor pressured to keep quiet on political issues, and the political awakening of the play’s central character, Madeline Morton, who traces her growing commitment to the ideals of American democracy to her grandfather, Silas Morton, the founder of the college.

And here we are again in the throes of another “100% Americanism” movement! Let no one wonder about Glaspell’s remarkable ability to dramatize the central conflicts at the heart of American identity nor the continuing relevance of her drama to America today. As Eva Le Gallienne once said, this play remains “a burning challenge to America.”

Stage Directions & Prologue – read by Cheryl Black, Professor of Theatre Emerita, University of Missouri

Senator Lewis – read by Stuart Hecht, Retired Associate Professor of Theatre, Boston College

Felix Fejevary II – read by Jeff Kennedy, Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at Arizona State University

Horace Fejevary – read by Andy Harper, Assistant Professor of English, St. Louis University

Madeline Morton – read by Lyndsi Skewes, Performing Artist and Early Childhood Educator

Isabel Fejevary – read by Anne Fletcher, Professor of Theatre Emerita, Southern Illinois University

Professor Holden – read by Joseph G. Ramsey, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Ira Morton – read by Stuart Hecht

Emil Johnson – read by Andy Harper

The reading went extremely well with a packed house! Many stayed for the discussion afterward, and it was a really robust discussion. This staged reading was a great success thanks to Cheryl’s adaptation and direction of the work, and our luck in getting such a dedicated and talented cast.