photo by: Contributed

A cast photo from "Witch." Amber Dickinson is at center.

When bicycling became a thing in the 1800s, the activity appealed to women who discovered in it an unaccustomed freedom of movement: Hey, we can go places, even if we can’t vote!

Predictably, alarms went off. The activity may seem liberating, public scolds warned, but at what cost to your appearance, ladies? The phrase “bicycle face” promptly entered the public consciousness, referring to the stern and “unladylike” look on one’s face when keeping balance on two wheels.

That’s all it took for some women to forsake bicycling forever, but the defiant few who kept at it rode into history, giving us civil rights and, a century later, women like Amber Dickinson, who has happily chosen “Bicycle Face” as the name of her recently formed nonprofit.

By day the Lawrence resident is a political science professor at Washburn University, teaching college students about federalism, public policy and conspiracy theories, but in her free time Dickinson is all about art and its expressive powers — and making that experience available to more people, especially women.

“I’m super excited about this,” Dickinson told the Journal-World, relating an experience earlier this year that she said “broke my brain in a good way” and gave her the idea for the nonprofit.

That experience was a playwriting class she took at Theatre Lawrence that got her thinking more deeply about “the state of the world and where things are going” and “the state of despair you feel when you cannot express yourself.”

“The idea of someone sitting and not having resources to make their art just kind of broke me,” she said. “I was like surely we can do something in communities at this little, itty bitty, micro level” to connect people with their creativity, she said.

Enter Bicycle Face Productions, which is focused on creating theatrical events designed to highlight women’s voices — not just the devastating stories that we tend to focus on, but, importantly, the full gamut of women’s lives.

The nonprofit also aims to provide funds to aspiring artists for supplies they need, as well as to compensate artists for their creations.

“I truly, fundamentally believe that art is life, and I think that art saves lives,” Dickinson said. “It has saved mine on numerous occasions.”

The nonprofit got underway a few months ago, but has already done some events aligned with its mission and has even raised a little bit of money already — all of which goes back into the mission of supporting others, like — one recent example — helping a local teacher acquire art supplies.

In October Dickinson, along with others who had taken the annual playwriting class at Theatre Lawrence, wrote original short plays that were performed by local actors, and the profits from the show were split between the theater and Bicycle Face, which paid the writers and actors involved as well as created a scholarship for someone to attend the next playwriting workshop.

“It’s something little, but I really believe if lots of people did lots of little things, then we might see communities thriving a little bit more,” Dickinson said.

Another thing she hopes to do is offer an audition workshop to help people understand and be comfortable with the experience of trying out for a show — a daunting hurdle that keeps some would-be actors from exploring their talents.

This week Dickinson is self-funding the production of a Jen Silverman play, “Witch,” at the Lawrence Arts Center, with ticket sales going to Bicycle Face’s mission. Next year she hopes to acquire some grant money to expand that mission, but for now she’s happy putting her money where her heart is.

“For me, the whole dream is truly to figure out a way to generate funds, to give them to people and help people make art and help people have something in their life that they feel like they have control over,” she said.

Dickinson read the script for “Witch” about a year ago, and when she later formed Bicycle Face she decided to produce and act in it with a team of mostly women, as well as her husband, Daniel Denton, and their 9-year-old son, Ollie, who’s the trusty production assistant.

The play is based on a 16th century Jacobean fable about a woman who’s been labeled a witch and ostracized from her community.

While the timeframe and some period costuming have been retained, the play uses 21st century language, including slang terms, and is something of a dark comedy.

“I think Silverman is just a genius for taking this tale and using this modern language that really tells us just how timeless this tale of punishing and ostracizing women really is,” Dickinson said. “… And it’s a really interesting look at: What is your soul worth? And what are you willing to give it up for? And what are you willing to give up to maybe make the people around you better?”

Dickinson said the play wasn’t going to hit anyone over the head with a heavy political message, but it’s definitely “going to hit you in your feels, depending on where you’re at right now.”

“Witch” is playing Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire St. For ticket information, see the center’s website. More information about Bicycle Face and its mission can be found at bicycleface.org.