THE Cotswold Players’ next production is a play written by local author Frank Hatt telling the story of twelve years, 1903 to 1915, in the life of a most remarkable women - Constance Smedley.

Born in 1876, by her mid-twenties 'Connie' had become an international celebrity. As an artist, at the age of sixteen she saw her first illustration published in Pall Mall magazine. As a playwright, in her early twenties she had seen Mrs Pat Campbell perform in one of her plays. As a novelist, she had received acclaim for her first novel. As a feminist journalist, she was now writing regularly for The St James’s Gazette and The Idler, interviewing G.B.Shaw and H.G.Wells and cajoling Kenneth Grahame out of his writer’s block and into producing “The Wind in the Willows”. She had founded the International Lyceum Club for Women, established its headquarters in London and gone on to oversee the foundation of similar Lyceum Clubs in Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and Florence. Constance Smedley was somebody.

And then she did three surprising things. She gave up the Lyceum Club. She married an impoverished artist called Maxwell Armfield. And she turned her back on London and the international scene. In January 1909 she and Max set up house in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire. Whilst living there the Armfields organised theatrical and musical entertainments from which was established the Cotswold Players in 1911.

Connie's achievements would have been remarkable for any woman of her time. What makes them all the more remarkable is that from the age of six she was unable to walk without crutches and from about the time she married was confined to a wheelchair.

The production runs from March 18 to 21 at the Cotswold Playhouse, Stroud, and The Players urge local people to come and celebrate the life of Constance Smedley with a free drink at the bar of the theatre she helped found 100 years ago. Tickets, priced at £12 are available online at www.cotswoldplayhouse.co.uk/tickets or by calling 0333 666 3366.