Susan Franklin Tanner created TheatreWorkers Project as a workshop for enabling displaced steelworkers to come to grips with their pain after “Lady Beth,” the Bethlehem Steel plant in Vernon, CA, was shut down. The project was funded through a California Arts Council grant with additional sponsorship by the Steelworkers Oldtimers Foundation.
The workshop process gave a group of the plant’s now-unemployed steelworkers the opportunity to tell their stories through theatre and writing, breaking the isolation so often felt by unheard and underrepresented communities. The workshops were held at United Steelworkers Local 1845, which had been turned into a food bank to help feed the local’s members and their families.
