Not since 2003 has Eastern had an all women’s play.

In 2003, the play “5 Women Wearing the Same Dress” was performed.

Now, women make up the entire cast of “Eleemosynary.”

“Eleemosynary” opened this past weekend with shows Friday and Saturday and a matinee on Sunday. It will be shown today and tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Village Theater.

“Eleemosynary,” a play by Lee Blessing about three generations of women, is directed by John T. Oertling, chair of the theater arts.

The play goes back and forth between past and present times.

The cast of “Eleemosynary” is made of three characters: Dorothea, the grandmother, played by senior theater arts major Fay Vayner; Artie, the daughter, played by junior elementary education major Allyson Higgins, and Echo, the granddaughter, played by freshman theater arts and communication disorder studies major Mariam Amr.

Dorothea is very optimistic; she always sees the good in everyone. Artie is career-orientated which makes her neglect her daughter Echo. Echo is trying to figure life out living with her grandmother since her mother left.

Echo was interested in spelling bees and would often recite lists of words throughout the play. She used these words to capture a void in her life.

“Certain words literally lift me up to a private altitude,” Echo says.

Words are special to Echo.

“Echo loves the way words as a whole make her feel. They are her passion in life and she loves to study them. Spelling the words is not as magical to her because it’s just letters alone,” Amr said. “When the letters are all brought together to form a word however, there is finally meaning that emerges and Echo finds it so amazing that just a word can symbolize such strong emotions and feelings.”

Echo kept vying for her mother’s love even after her mother failed her time and time again. But Echo still spells to please her mother.

“The reason Echo spells and does spelling bees is because her mother suggested it. Echo felt that by doing what her mother wanted, it would make her mother like her, or even love her. But really, the spelling is not what Echo loves,” Amr said.

The moral of “Eleemosynary” can be perceived in many ways.

“I think that the moral of the play is to fight for what you believe in, no matter what anyone thinks,” Amr said.

Dorothea was eccentric and spent her life studying concepts that most did not care about, but she did not let that stop her from doing what she loved.

Vayner said “Eleemosynary” was about being independent.

“It’s about being something other than what your parents want you to be,” Vayner said.

Echo can see this trait in Dorothea and she loves her for it. Dorothea is like Echo’s mother since the majority of her life Echo’s real mother was not there.

“Dorothea has inspired her to be herself and to live life for herself and not for anyone else. Echo is no doubt made fun of at school for being such a smarty pants and using big words, but Echo eventually decides to hold her head high and to just be herself,” Amr said.

Dorothea captured the essence of the play, saying, “We all try to be perfect just what the next one needs and we never come close.”