Is There Enough Hope to Answer the Call…Again?

Directing The Hello Girls again, and honoring the women history forgot

Is there enough kindness, generosity, and hope in this world to share, not once, but twice?

I believe the answer is yes.

It can feel daunting to try to make a difference. To stand up for something you believe in at a cellular level. The world can leave us feeling tired, even apathetic. But if the “Hello Girls” could answer the call in 1917, before they even had the right to vote, then surely we can answer it now.

My name is Maeve Smith, and I have been given the extraordinary opportunity to direct The Hello Girls for a second time, while also helping to honor another “Hello Girl” whose service has gone unrecognized for more than a century.

Ross Valley Players in Marin County, California, has chosen to produce this new American musical and invited me to direct. This marks the first time in my career I’ve returned to a show I’ve already staged, and it feels like an incredible gift. Long before this invitation, I remember sitting in this very theatre, watching The Glass Menagerie, and thinking: The Hello Girls would belong here.

The original barn that today houses the Ross Valley Players theatre in Marin County, California.

Ross Valley Players is the oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States west of the Mississippi, celebrating its 96th season. Tucked into a former barn at the edge of a lush art and garden center, the theatre feels timeless, a place where stories have been shared for nearly a century. Now, the story of the “Hello Girls” joins that lineage.

And yet, it is a story that should have been widely known the moment our World War I troops returned home.

The “Hello Girls”, members of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, took the Army oath, wore dog tags and insignia, and were sent to France as bilingual telephone operators. They connected calls under fire, often five times faster than the men they replaced, helping to coordinate combat operations and save countless lives. Still, when they returned home, they were denied recognition as veterans and forced to fight for that status until 1970.

Many never lived to see it.

Maeve Smith will direct “The Hello Girls” at Ross Valley Players in Marin County, CA.

This February, alongside our production at Ross Valley Players, we will gather at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California, to honor one of those women: Irma Rameline Armanet. Discovered in an unmarked grave, Irma, like so many “Hello Girls,” was denied even the dignity of a named headstone acknowledging her service.

When the team working on these recognitions asked me, “Do you think we can do this again?” my answer was immediate, “I’m in.”

On February 7th, our cast will stand graveside to sing and remember Irma, before honoring her again onstage that very evening. It is a rare and powerful convergence, art and history, remembrance and storytelling, meeting in real time.

I was honored to do this work previously for Juliette Louise Courtial Smith in Sonoma, whose headstone was finally installed in August 2024, bearing both her name and her military service. In February 2026, Irma Rameline Armanet will receive that same long-overdue recognition.

There is goodness in this world. I know this because I have met the people doing this work: historians, descendants, advocates, artists, and community members, spanning from Washington, D.C. to a small local theatre. They welcomed me as one of their own, united by a shared belief: that these women matter.

The “Hello Girls” answered the call once.

Now, somehow, they are asking us to answer it again. And we will.

If you are able, I hope you’ll join us by attending the show, by learning their stories, or simply by remembering their names.

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