POST referendum and leading up to the General Election in May, there has never been a more timely occasion to encourage women to exercise their right to vote.

That's the thinking behind a bold and colourful march that will make its way through the streets of Bridgeton to Glasgow Green on Saturday.

To celebrate International Women's Day, and its move to a new home on Landressy Street in the east end, Glasgow Women's Library is opening its doors to the public with a unique event.

It all starts with a performance of suffragette play A Pageant of Great Women by Cicely Hamilton, written more than 100 years ago.

A total of 103 women will take part, representing forward-thinking and life-changing personalities from over the years, including political activist Mary Barbour, artist Joan Eardley and Mary McIver, who set up the Barras.

"This project gives us an opportunity to do one of the projects we like to do best which involve active citizenship and promoting the idea of women becoming more confident, more active in their communities, learning more skills, meeting other people and developing their social and cultural capital," explains Glasgow Women's Library co-founder Adele Patrick.

"At the same time we are finding out about the history of women who have become active or campaigners or changed things for the better in society."

The project will help Glasgow Women's Library make its mark on the local area, involved people from the community in the play and the march.

"We wanted it to extend outside the library doors, almost as an act of welcome because we love being in Bridgeton but not a lot of people know about the Women's Library," adds Adele.

"This was an opportunity for us to give something to the local community to do something spectacular but to raise awareness about women's histories and how women in the past and women today need to work for more equality and opportunities for women."

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland approached the library with the idea of performing the play to tie in with the amount of centenaries of suffragette history, from women getting the vote in 1918 to the death of Emily Wilding Davison after she threw herself in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

"This is an opportunity to say, look what women sacrificed?" says Adele. "And look at the amazing firebrand women, ordinary women, who decided enough is enough."

The original play features a judge, a defence lawyer and a devil's advocate, who asks who women should get the vote? Then well-known faces from history, from Elizabeth I to Mary Queen of Scots, speak up.

Actresses Patricia Panther, who appeared in Glasgow Girls, Lesley Hart from Wallace and Lucianne McEvoy from Horizontal Collaboration will take the lead roles with 50 women from the local community playing scripted roles and another 50 non-speaking roles of women from history are open to anyone who goes along to the briefing session on the morning of the event.

More Scottish women of note have been added to the play and their names will be printed on sashes worn by cast members when they march to Glasgow Green.

The library has its own special link with playwright Cicely Hamilton after her biographer donated their archive.

"We've been able to use materials in our learning sessions to get a real insight into Cicely," says Adele. "Someone will be performing as her in the production.

"We did a little project in the library when we knew we were going to do the production where women were coming in and reading out suffragette plays.

" I don't really know what I imagined they would be like but I thought they would be dull and dusty and very out of touch with women today. I hadn't reckoned on them being funny, very relevant for today and the having same gender battles going on and class issues."

More than 200 women are expected to march to Glasgow Green after the play, wearing sashes and carrying bold banners proclaiming suffragette statements. They will gather at the old drying green area on Templeton Street where a choir will sing songs chanted by suffragettes in prison.

"The whole Green was really a site for suffragette gatherings but also a really well-loved placed by women and well used by them as the drying was actually put out there," says Adele.

"This will be a moving, inspirational and thrilling event for all involved including library users and learners who are proudly marching as their historical heroines, the library's supporters who will be celebrating our relocation to permanent new premises in the east end and spectacle for the people of Bridgeton."

March of Women, March 7, Glasgow Women's Library, 23 Landressy Street, from 11am. Visit www.womenslibrary.org.uk