WHEN THE RATTLESNAKE SOUNDS

A short, strong, one-act play, set in a Cape May, New Jersey, summer hotel where Harriet Tubman and two younger women work as laundresses to get money for Harriet's Underground Railroad work. There's friction between Lennie, righteous and dedicated, and Celia, a minister's daughter who has joined Harriet impulsively and now finds the work and the danger more than she bargained for. But with Harriet's encouragement and her sympathetic reminder of what their commitment means, Celia takes heart and the three women end up singing a hymn together as they scrub. Harriet's reminiscences evoking the atmosphere of other places and occasions make an effective and very simple way of ""changing"" scenes without changing sets; the play is easy to stage and its theme is easy to apply to any number of situations; thus it's an obvious choice for junior high production.