AA to JA

I'm working on this new production with a few PHTS women called The First Ladies Project. It's going to be a historical-comedy about the role of the First Lady in United States history, fan fiction-esque with dabbles of reality. You know, once we finish writing it.

I'm currently reading this dusty old book that I found on my dad's bookshelf a couple weeks ago: The Book of Abigail and John, which is a compilation of selected letters from their courtship to their marriage to their political partnership. It's funny, they write as if they're characters in Shakespeare plays. Their ways of going about saying things are so extended, I actually burst into laughter at one point because John Adams closed a letter with "All right! I'm going to Bed!" True, Bed was capitalized, but it was so similar to contemporary speech it made me laugh.

I'm loving this one portion of a letter from Abigail to John:

Braintree october 16 1774

I dare not express to you at 300 hundred miles distance how ardently I long for your return. I have some very miserly Wishes; and cannot consent to your spending one hour in Town till at least I have had you 12. The Idea plays about my Heart, unnerves my hand whilst I write, awakens all the tender sentiments that years have encreased and matured, and which when with me were every day dispensing to you.


I imagine Abigail alone in a big house, her bedroom adorned with dozens of candles at night, so that she may feel lit up, visible in the dark. She sleeps in the middle of the bed so that she may feel bigger. The curtains she leaves wide open; she wants to be awakened by the sun at the earliest possible moment. I like that she capitalizes “Wishes,” “Idea,” and “Heart,” as if they are real beings who live, breathe and make things happen.

This post has no end, except that you should follow The First Ladies Project on Twitter. We try to make it fun for you. www.twitter.com/firstladiesnyc