Professor Harrigan’s Farewell Play: Mill Girls | Arts & Entertainment

COLCHESTER — Eight years after “Mill Girls” first hit the main stage at Saint Michael’s College,  Professor Peter Harrigan is bringing the show back to local audiences. 

First staged in 2017, “Mill Girls” features music by local musician Tom Cleary. This year’s production, set for Nov. 5-8, also serves as a farewell to Harrigan, who is retiring at the end of this academic year after 34 years teaching at the college. 

The play follows a group of young women as they work in New England mills, like those in Winooski during the 19th century. Along the way, the women uncover the hypocrisy of the systems around them and organize for change for themselves and others. 

“I think it’s a bit more focused on the idea that initially, this really was sort of a wonderful option for young women, but then because of the greed of industrialists, became kind of abusive,” Harrigan said. “They sort of got themselves out only to be replaced by immigrants in most cases.” 

The cotton used in the mills to create textiles was sourced from Black slave labor in the southern United States, Harrigan said, which the mill workers often did not want to be involved with once they learned more. Just like the Mill Girls, audience members can learn to be more aware of their place in systems that can sometimes exploit for profit.

“Are they folks who believe the same things we do? Or are they places where perhaps we’re relying too much on underpaid laborers in other parts of the world?” Harrigan said. 

Through his research, Harrigan found Mill Girls were often obligated to attend church weekly as part of their employment contract.

“They actually come to question the morals of their supervisors because how can you sort of, you know, talk about benevolence in a church setting and then be abusive to the people who depend on you for their livelihood?” Harrigan said.

He originally wrote the play during a sabbatical when he was drawn to the Winooski mills and their history. He drew inspiration from published journals of real-world mill girls, and a few of these women became some of the country’s first labor organizers. 

Three would eventually write books about their lives, and three of the play’s characters  — Harriet, Lucy and Sarah — are based on the writers of these books.

For this production, Harrigan made a few changes to the initial 2017 version to keep audiences engaged. 

“I really wanted to keep the new music that had been created for the 2020 production, but also slim things down a little bit, just because I think people, post-pandemic, want their entertainment in slightly smaller bites,” he said.

Harrigan hopes audiences find joy in the story but also meaningful lessons they can take away.

“[I hope they take away the messages of] trying to watch out for others in the world, trying to create circumstances that are equitable and doing our research,” he said.

See “Mill Girls” at 7 p.m. each night Nov. 5-8 at McCarthy Arts Center’s Mainstage Theater. The production is free but showgoers are asked to reserve their tickets online in advance.