The Kittie Knox Plays

A series of plays about a bicycling barrier breaker.

Project Overview

Kittie Knox was a young biracial cyclist in the 1890s who fought against race-based limitations in America’s post-Reconstruction reaction against Black advancement. During her cycling career (1893 – 1899), she became a well-known century (100-mile) rider, protested the League of American Wheelmen’s color bar in 1895, and refused to conform to conventions about fast riding and wearing a long skirt while cycling. This is a dramatic story of a turbulent time in America’s history with lessons for today’s struggle for racial and gender equality and justice. 

This project will commission and produce a series of one-act plays about Kittie Knox, creating a vehicle for multi-racial school, college, and community theater groups, along with bicycling clubs, to stage theatrical performances which reflect on the history of race and gender around the topic of bicycling. An exemplar site-specific production will be initially produced in Greater Boston and Martha’s Vineyard by Plays in Place. A book of the play scripts, illustrated with production photos from the Boston shows, will be published to help promote the study and production of the plays in both outdoor and indoor settings. 

For the initial production, The Kittie Knox Plays will be performed in a series of spots within one large park. Audiences will move from play to play, either on foot or by bicycle, guided by the production team. The plays might also combine with a longer group bicycle ride, after the show. Plays in Place will perform the show multiple times on a Saturday, three performances (of all the plays together) over the course of the day, for audiences of approximately 50 people at a time. 

The playwrights: Patrick Gabridge, Claire Gardner, and Kristen Greendige, have already written drafts of the scripts, and Plays in Place is actively developing them with actors and director Michelle Aguillon. 

The current plan is to produce The Kittie Knox Plays fully in September of 2025, in Franklin Park of Boston, Herter Bark of Boston, Cambridge Crossing, and on Martha’s Vineyard. 

MassBike and Plays in Place have formed a partnership to fund and produce this project. Fundraising is currently underway, and we need your help. Please consider donating below to make this project a success.

Project Phases

Phase 1: Select writers, production sites, commission plays, developmental readings, and revisions.

Phase 2: Produce a professional site-specific production of the plays, over a series of summer weekends. These will be outdoor shows, using real bicycles, with professional actors, directors, and designers.

Phase 3: Edit, publish, and distribute a book of the plays. The book will include the scripts, production photos from the initial run, essays on the history, tips on production, etc. 

Project Team  

Plays in Place is a theatre company that creates new site-specific plays in partnership with museums, historic spaces, and other institutions. They have extensive experience bringing historic stories and sites to life in ways that deeply engage audiences. Past partners and projects include: Mount Auburn Cemetery (The America Plays, The Nature Plays, Moonlight Abolitionists), Revolutionary Spaces (Cato & Dolly, I Am This Place, Scipio’s Balcony, Imagining The Age of Phillis), Roosevelt- Campobello International Park (Beloved Island: Windows on Campobello), the National Park Service (Suffrage in Black & White, Revolution Retold), Old North Church, and Historic Northampton. 

MassBike is a nonprofit organization that advocates for policies that encourage and support community wellness, equity, and inclusion, enable sustainable growth, drive economic vitality, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They have extensive experience in organizing group cycling events and have organized rides and events around Kittie Knox and a diverse group of historical cycling figures and events.  

Lorenz J. Finison, Historical Consultant to the project, author of Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society, a founding member of the Friends of the Bicycling History Collections at UMass Boston, and of the New England Cycling Coalition for Diversity.

Support Provided by The Boston Foundation and The Lawrence & Lillian Solomon Foundation

Support The Kittie Knox Plays

The production of The Kittie Knox Plays depends on generous support from donors like you. Please use the form below to make a tax-deductible donation today that MassBike will put towards The Kittie Knox Plays.

Checks made payable to MassBike with "Kittie Knox Plays" in the memo can also be sent to: MassBike, 50 Milk Street 16th floor, Boston MA 02109

If you would like to donate to the Kittie Knox Plays through a matching charitable fund, please donate normally to MassBike and send us an email note indicating that the donation is intended for the Kittie Knox Plays to [email protected].