
The Kittie Knox Plays
Produced by: Plays in Place
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Locations: Boston and Cambridge and Milton
2025 Dates: September 13, 20 & 27
A series of plays about a bicycling barrier breaker
Project Overview
Kittie Knox was a young biracial cyclist 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, and refused to conform to conventions about “lady-like” speed, and fashion while cycling. The plays chronicle the dramatic story of a turbulent time in America’s history with lessons for today’s struggle for racial and gender equality and justice.
See Kittie’s story brought to life in a trilogy of plays performed outdoors (with bikes!) at three different locations in the greater Boston area. Our unique productions will take place at a new outdoor space each weekend during September. Audiences will move through each location from play to play, guided by the production team/ushers. Talk-backs with the actors and group bike rides after some performances enhance the outdoor theatrical experience. Immerse yourself in live theater as you’ve never seen it before!
Locations
- Cambridge Crossing, East Cambridge, September 13
- Eustis Estate Museum & Study Center, Milton, September 20
- Herter Park, Boston, September 27
Kittie lives on beyond 2025! This project will create a vehicle for educational institutions, theater groups, and bicycling clubs, to stage performances of The Kittie Knox Plays. Following the initial production by Plays in Place, we will publish a book of the play scripts, essays, and production notes, illustrated with production photos from the Boston-area shows. This book will be distributed nationwide. Your contribution to the premiere productions supports future productions across the country.
MassBike and Plays in Place have formed a partnership to fund and produce this project. We’re grateful to the Boston Foundation, the Solomon Foundation, and the Stone Family Foundation for providing funds to help us kickstart the project. The premiere production of The Kittie Knox Plays will depend on additional generous support from donors like you.
Support the plays by making a tax-deductible donation below.
Production Team
- Playwrights: Kirsten Greenidge, Claire Gardner, & Patrick Gabridge
- Director: Michelle Aguillon
- Co-Producers: Hannah McEachern & Patrick Gabridge
- Historical Consultant: Lorenz Finison
Project Team
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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
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This program is supported in part by a grant from Cambridge Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
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].