Association for Theatre in Higher Education Women and Theatre Program
NOTES FROM THE PRESIDENT by Sara Warner Ecologies,” and ATHE’s “Regeneration” theme in H appy Spring, or how I wish. We experienced a late season relationship to its site. I Nor-Easter yesterday, and I’m looking out at two feet of snow am also thinking about in my back yard. New Orleans, I can assure you, will be hot, global warming, the hot, hot. As many of you know, I am from Louisiana. I grew war in Iraq, the recent up in Lacombe, a tiny town in St. Tammany Parish just north of Lake shootings at Virginia Tech, Pontchartrain. When I was a kid, only the main highway was paved. Imus’ reprehensible racist All the other roads were dirt. If you blinked, you missed downtown, diatribe, and a host of indicated only by a flashing caution light in between the cemetery and other socio-economic and the bank. Lacombe has an elementary and junior high school, more political crises. than 20 churches, and at least that many bars, just about right for a Nocca Theater population of about 5,000. The lakefront portion of Lacombe was I look forward to WTP every seriously impacted by hurricane Katrina. Several houses were washed year because it revivifies me and inspires me to work harder for change. away, along with groves of cypress trees, many of which were hundreds Serving with Ashley, Erica, Stephanie, Joan, Maya, Priscilla, Jen-Scott, of years old. My uncle and aunt lost their homes, but my parents only Aileen and Julie on this year’s conference committee has been a real had roof and water damage. Because of its proximity to New Orleans joy. What I wouldn’t give to replace Bush’s cabinet with the members and because of the large stretches of undeveloped land, Lacombe of the WTP Executive Committee! Seriously, there has been incredibly became a target site for evacuees. In the aftermath of the hurricane energy and synergy this year. You’ll feel it too, the minute you walk the population has surged. While 8,300 people might not sound like through the doors of NOCCA and put on your nametag, and the vibe a lot, it is a tremendous jump for a town that is not incorporated, will continue through to our ATHE panels and gatherings. We’ve got an has no services, not even city water or sewage, and has had failing, incredible line-up this year, which you can read more about in Ashley overcrowded schools since I was a kid. My brother lives in a rural and Erica’s columns. I’m thrilled that Kathleen Juhl and Ann-Elizabeth suburb of Baton Rouge. He had to quit his job in the city because his Armstrong have arranged for all WTP conference participants to receive commute went form 40 minutes to 2.5 hours – that’s how backed up a complimentary copy of their new book, Radical Acts: Theater and the highways became after Katrina. Working at a smaller garage for Feminist Pedagogies of Change, at registration. Please check their less pay is better, he says, than never being home in time to tuck in his column for more details. I, for one, can’t wait to crack the cover. daughters. My sister lives in Waveland, Mississippi, which was ground zero for Katrina. A six-mile deep swath of the coastline was claimed by NOCCA, a school for the performing arts located in the Marigny District, the Gulf, including her house. Her town was absolutely unrecognizable is a perfect spot for the WTP conference. About a 15 minute walk from and is only this year starting to show signs of a healthy recovery. What the ATHE conference hotel, the stroll to NOCCA will take you outside was once a sleepy working class town where an average person could the designated tourist strip and enable you to see first-hand what has afford beachfront property is quickly turning into a mini Las Vegas with and has not recovered in the French Quarter and the neighborhoods condos and casinos as far as the eye can see. This is just a snapshot that border it. WTP will hold a benefit performance for NOCCA on of the changes in the South and just a few personal examples that Tuesday night. We will invite the public to join us for the two keynote resonate for me when I consider our 2007 conference, “Aftermath performances, and all proceeds will go to the school’s scholarship fund. There are several local artists and activists on the schedule this year and more all-conference events, including some fabulous interactive Spring 2007 panels. There will also be what looks like a record number of first-time attendees, which is incredibly exciting. As usual, the conversations we WTP Conference News ...... 2-3 generate at the WTP conference will continue at ATHE. Please check the website for complete conference details (http://www.athe.org/wtp). WTP Membership and Registration ...... 4 Please join me in thanking Ashley Lucas and Erica Stevens Abbitt for ATHE 2007...... 5-6 conference coordination. We applaud you and all the members of the Member News ...... 7-8 planning committee who helped create these events. I look forward to Executive Council Contact Information ...... 9 seeing you all in New Orleans!
WTP CONFERENCE NEWS
PREVIEW OF THE 2007 WTP CONFERENCE PREVIEW OF WTP AT ATHE 2007 NEW ORLEANS - July 24-25 NEW ORLEANS - July 26-29 by Ashley Lucas by Erica Stevens Abbitt WTP Vice President in Charge of Conference Planning ATHE Conference Planner
The conference planning committee received a wonderful and diverse For this summer’s WTP conference and the WTP-sponsored panels group of submissions for this year’s conference, and we are very at the ATHE 2007 conference in New Orleans, our focus has been on pleased with the range of scholarly presentations, workshops, readings, “Aftermath Ecologies: Traces, Reverberations, Loss, and Renewal.” and performances which lay ahead for all of us when we meet in New Acknowledging that we should not expect the same resource and Orleans this summer. As usual, we will be hosting a reading of the comforts afforded by conferences center in other cities, we intended winning play from the Jane Chambers Play Contest, and this year we to transform what seemed like a limitation into an opportunity to learn join universities, theatre companies, and community organizations all more about Katrina and its aftermath, as well as to meet with local across the country in staging performances of a week’s worth of Suzan- practitioners and theatre advocates. We want to listen, exchange ideas, Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays. promote engaged, effective activism and learn what’s really going on with our colleagues in New Orleans and other areas affected by this disaster.
In keeping with this focus on exchange, the response to our call for papers for WTP panels for the ATHE main conference was very impressive! With a range of excellent submissions, and limited facilities, it was difficult to make a final selection. Finally, however, we able to put together a slate that reflects our diverse membership and reflects our need to learn about the realities of loss, as well as the possibilities of renewal.
WTP-sponsored panels at ATHE 2007 will include presentations and papers on drama therapy and healing, fan culture, cross-cultural “carnivalesque”, affect and labour, apocalypse survival skills, and comic regenerations. To keep the energy generated by the WTP Suzan-Lori Parks conference flowing at ATHE, our organization will also be sponsoring The scholarly contributions to this year’s conference include panels a range of multidisciplinary panels and roundtables with performers, on U.S. Latina/o and Latin American theatre, the performative nature scholars and activists on the future of feminist scholarship, performance of social protest, and the links between race and place in global in post-Katrina New Orleans, and empathy, activism and performance in performances. As a featured speaker at this year’s conference, times of social crisis. scholar and former New Orleans resident, Ruth Salvaggio, will give a talk entitled “Reading Sappho in New Orleans,” which situates the destruction in New Orleans within a reading of Sappho’s lyrics. Building upon the work they began last year, the Feminist Theater Aesthetics and Pedagogy Workgroup will reconvene, and two new workshops will also join our conversation this year. The Aesthetics and Practicalities of Witnessing Workshop will examine theatre as a practice of bearing witness, while the Mothers Acting Up-LIVE Workshop will use performance exercises to teach mothers and other women to be effective advocates for the world’s children. The outstanding line-up of performances in this year’s conference includes a California-based Wendy Salkind group of activists, scholars, students, and former prisoners who have At ATHE, WTP will also be showcasing new scholarship on topics from created a piece called Of Barbed Tongues and Razor Wire, which deals crisis narratives, and post-colonial practice to female subjectivity in with the struggles of incarcerated women. Our keynote performances Botswana and The Rude Mechs’ Grrl Action at the WTP Debut Panel. To will be two one-woman shows. Cristal Sabbaugh’s Tedessa addresses really keep the emphasis on renewal and regeneration we decided this the issues of race and class after Hurricane Katrina, and Wendy year to follow up the Jane Chambers Playwriting Event (always a Salkind’s Ida developed out of her readings of Gertrude Stein. We are highlight of our presence at ATHE!) with an evening reception for our also still in the process of putting together a multimedia performance membership. Our goal this year is to re-connect and to forge new piece based on submissions from WTP members and others reflecting alliances, looking outside the conference center to the feminist on their experiences of the hurricanes and their aftermath, so if you advocacy, theory and practice going on in the classrooms, studios, would like to contribute to this project, please email your stories, community centers, and streets beyond. We have a lot to share - and pictures, thoughts, and artwork to Ashley Lucas at [email protected]. also a lot to learn. It’s going to be an exciting, unusual, challenging edu. See you in New Orleans! and energizing conference. We hope you can join us!
WTP CONFERENCE NEWS
ANNOUNCEMENT FOR WTP MEMBERS: SPECIAL ONE-TIME OFFER!
Radical Acts: Theater and Feminist Pedagogies of Change Edited by Ann Elizabeth Armstong and Kathleen Juhl
Thanks to ATHE’s special Projects and Programs Grants, this year each Women and Theatre dues paying member will receive a free copy of Radical Acts: Theater and Feminist Pedagogies of Change. Along with offering Women and Theatre members a valuable resource, we hope that this publication will foster our ongoing discussions surrounding JANE CHAMBERS AWARD feminist pedagogy in theatre. We are grateful to the press, Aunt Lute books of San Francisco, CA, a non-profit multicultural feminist press, for by Maya Roth and Priscilla Page making this generous offer possible. Jane Chambers Co-Coordinators
Radical Acts: Theater and Feminist Pedagogies of Change is an exciting Please join us at ATHE for a reading of WTP’s Winning Jane Chambers and innovative compilation of essays and interviews about how feminist Award Play Saturday, July 28th at 4pm, followed by a special approaches to teaching theater challenge and engage students, reception with friends. Dedicated to valuing excellence in feminist teachers, and audiences.. Contributors include theater practitioners performance and theater, this year’s winner will be announced in working in universities, communities, high schools, and professional early June. (Already, from those plays advanced to the final round, theaters. They also work with people with disabilities, working class we can tell this year’s winner will be one to remember: Stay tuned to people, and people of color. The anthology offers not only bracing the website for details next month.) critiques of mainstream theater institutions and practices, but inspiring
and energizing accounts of how to create a more inclusive, reflexive, This year, our first to coordinate the contest, we received more and liberating theater education. The collection features essays by than 200 entries for the main Jane Chambers Award in Playwriting—a authors such as Cherríe Moraga and Joni Jones/Omi Olomo and testimony to the ongoing vitality, and importance, of this award. All interviews with Deb Margolin and Kate Bornstein. written by women, the plays range from solo performance scripts to full length ensemble plays, and reflect a range of feminist Trade paper, 240 pages perspectives that cross diverse age, race, geography, sex, ability ISBN: 978-1-879960-75 and class formations. Price: $17.94, (But FREE with WTP membership renewal in 2007!)
Hosting the contest helps WTP to forge feminist community, as well Don’t delay in renewing your membership this year. The offer expires as to recognize and promote new work by talented writers. As in past August 2007. Books will be distributed at the WTP 2007 Conference years, we will announce several honorable mentions and distribute our in New Orleans or at ATHE 2007 New Orleans. For more information ranking of top feminist plays to theatres and universities across the contact Ann Elizabeth Armstrong at [email protected] or country. We are especially grateful to the 15 members of WTP, and Kathleen Juhl at [email protected] feminist friends, who are helping to judge these plays: Our readers come from across the US, and include feminist artists, university professors, and dramaturgs.
Please help us to keep this contest thriving by making contributions to the Jane Chambers Fund. We rely on the generosity of individuals, such as many in WTP, and institutions, such as University of Texas at Austin and Georgetown, to run the contest and honor the winner. In the past two years, participating artists have paid processing fees and we are actively working on grant opportunities to renew this fund, which has dwindled. Your generosity—connections, contributions, willingness to assist in development—makes an important difference to feminist Above: From Norma Bowles’ and theater and our vision of the future. Fringe Benefits’ Mitos, Ritos y Tonterias, featured in an interview in It is an honor to coordinate this contest. We thank all of you for your for Radical Acts. Performer pictured is generous excitement about the Jane Chambers Contest—and Alejandra Flores. especially the previous coordinator Gretchen Smith for her invaluable assistance as mentor and judge. Left: Laurie Carlos teaching/direct- ing in Austin, Texas. Featured in See you at the Reading, where we will honor the Winning Playwright. Jones/Olomo’s essay “Making Language.” WTP MEMBERSHIP AND DUES INFORMATION
The Women and Theatre Program is a self-incorporated division of the Association for Theatre in Higher WTP MEMBERSHIP DUES & Education (ATHE) that began in 1974. At that time, the CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FORM goal was to bring professional theatre women together with women in academia. In the years since its inception, WTP has sponsored panels and activities at ATHE’s Check the appropriate annual dues category: annual conference. In 1980, WTP began holding its own _____$25 Faculty annual conference. WTP conferences feature panels, _____$20 Professional informal discussions, workshops, and performances as a _____$15 Student/Senior/Underemployed means to foster both research and the production of _____$50 Sponsor feminist theatre activities. WTP conference topics have _____$100 Visionary included the intersection of theory and performance, multicultural theatre, lesbian theory and theatre, and many Check the appropriate conference registration fee related aspects of feminist inquiry. In addition to its category. Please note this price includes all meals, which conference activity, WTP, in collaboration with ATHE, will be catered by local New Orleans eateries. sponsors the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award. This award is one of the few nationally recognized competitions _____$55 Faculty for women playwrights and attracts over 200 submissions _____$50 Professional annually. The award-winning play is given a reading at _____$45 Student/Senior/Underemployed ATHE, and an annotated list of the top contenders is circulated to the WTP members and over 400 regional theaters. WTP also sponsors the annual Jane Chambers $______Donation to the Jane Chambers program Student Playwriting Award, and the winner is given a staged reading at our annual conference. The continuing $______TOTAL goal of WTP is to enable feminist inquiry and to provide opportunities for discussion between those who teach, MEMBER INFORMATION (PLEASE PRINT perform, and theorize about feminism, theatre, and CLEARLY) performance.
MEMBERSHIP Name______WTP’s membership year runs from the first day of September to the last day of August. As a member, you receive two newsletters each year, which include reports Mailing Address______on the Jane Chambers competition, ATHE conference news, and programming for WTP conferences. Please support WTP by joining our organization or renewing your ______membership. Please fill out the form in the right hand column of this page and send it with your payment to the address listed on the bottom of the form. Please also ______consider becoming a sponsoring or visionary member and making a donation to the Jane Chambers Playwriting Contest program. ______MAIL FORM AND CHECK TO: Institutional or Professional Affiliation: Aileen Hendricks, Treasurer ______Dept. of Visual and Performing Arts Southern Branch Post Office Home Phone______Southern University Baton Rouge, LA 70813. Work Phone______Make checks payable to the Women and Theatre Email______Program. U.S. dollars only please.
For more information visit our website at: http://www.athe.org/wtp wtp WTP CONFERENCE NEWS
WTP-SPONSORED PANELS & EVENTS Jason Tremblay (University of Texas at Austin) “Intersections: Dramaturgical and Outreach Practices for ATHE 2007 (Draft Schedule) Young Audiences; or Katrina: A Girl Who Wanted Her Name Back.” Thursday, July 26, 2007 Kristin Leahey (University of Texas at Austin) 1:30 - 4:45 pm “Intersections: Dramaturgical and Outreach Practices for Dance/Drama Therapy, Identity and Healing Young Audiences; or Katrina: A Girl Who Wanted Her Name Rhona Justice-Malloy (University of Mississippi), Session Co-ordinator Back.” “Authentic Movement, Healing and Female Embodiment.” C. Rosalind Bell Adam McKinney (New York University) “The New Orleans Monologues.” “Movement, Healing, Ritual and Performance - Ghana and Grace Livingston (University of Puget Sound) South Africa.” “The New Orleans Monologues” Judith Royer (Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles) N.J. Stanley (Lycoming College) “Stages: Life Stories for Senior Citizens and Other Oral History “The City That Care Forgot Takes to the Streets.” Projects for the Aging and/or Cancer Survivors.” Amy Elliott (Criminal Juvenile Justice Resource Center) Friday, July 27, 2007 “Criminal/Juvenile Justice: Collaborative, Community-Based 9:00 - 10:30 am Approaches to Drama Therapy and Performance.” MD Panel: Regenerating Praxis: A Roundtable on Empathy, Sally Bailey (Kansas State University) Activism, and Performance in Times of Crisis “Exploring Identity Through Drama Therapy.” John Fletcher (Louisiana State University), Chair Heather Carver (University of Missouri-Columbia) Sonja Kuftinec (University of Minnesota) “’Booby Prize:’Writing Performance as a Journey of Breast Linda Kintz (University of Oregon) Cancer.” Gay Gibson Cima (Georgetown University) Anne-Liese Juge-Fox (Louisiana State University) 1:30 - 3:00 pm Rhonda Blair (Southern Methodist University) MD Panel: The Future of the “F” Word: Feminist Theatre Scholarship in the 21st Century 12:30 - 2:00 pm J. Ellen Gainor (Cornell University), Chair Women and Theatre Program General Business Meeting Meghan Brodie (Cornell University), Co-Coordinator Megan Shea (Cornell University),Co-Coordinator 4:00 - 5:30 pm Jennifer Popple (University of Colorado-Boulder) Affect and Labor Gwendolyn Alker (New York University) Sara Warner (Cornell University) Meghan Brodie (Cornell University) “Raging at the Commodification of Affect in the Five Lesbian Lisa Hall (University of Colorado-Boulder) Brothers’ The Secretaries.” Adrienne Macki (Boston College) Erin Hurley (McGill University) Magda Romanska (Emerson College) “Emotional Geographies and National Labours.” Diana Looser (Cornell University) Peta Tait (Latrobe University) Erica Stevens Abbitt (University of Windsor) “Performing Hope in War-time: Eleanor Roosevelt and Emotion Work.” 3:15 - 4:45 pm Nicholas Ridout (Queen Mary University of London) MD Panel: Katrin’s Reverberations “Feeling Bad: Bad Feeling.” Geoff Proehl (University of Puget Sound), Chair “The New Orleans Monologues.” 4:00 - 7:15 pm Samuel Hunter (Iowa Playwrights’ Workshop, University of Iowa) Comic Regenerations: Feminist Humor - Subversions, Aversions, Moderator Diversions “American Apathy in the West Bank.” Dominica Radulescu (Washington and Lee University), Chair John Baker (Iowa Playwrights’ Workshop, University of Iowa) Moderator “Isabella’s Madness, Franca’s Carnival and a Refugee’s “American Apathy in the West Bank.” Subversions.” Theresa Smalec (New York University) Session Coordinator Sarah Myers (University of Texas at Austin “All About Katrina: Film Artists Negotiate the Burdens of “God of the Gaps - an Absurd Exploration of Intelligent Representing Post-HurricaneNew Orleans.” Design.” Anthony Piccirillo (Independent Screenwriter/Director) Norma Bowles (Fringe Benefits Theater Company) “All About Katrina: Film Artists Negotiate the Burdens of “Comedy for Social Justice.” Representing Post-Hurricane New Orleans.”
WTP CONFERENCE NEWS
WTP-Sponsored Panels & Events at ATHE 2007 Women and Theatre Program Executive Business Meeting (Draft Schedule Continued) 2:15 - 3:45 pm Jane Chambers Event Rehearsal Deborah Margolin (Performer) “O Yes I Will - a new solo piece by performance artist Deb 4:00 - 7:15 pm Margolin.” Jane Chambers Playwriting Event 2007 Dalia Basiouny (Cuny Graduate Center) followed by Membership Reception “Arab American Women’s Comedy.” Kate Davy (Bentley College) Sunday, July 29, 2007 “Exploding Identities: Lisa Kron’s Well.” 9:45 - 11:15 am Joan Lipkin (That Uppity Theater Company) Cross-Cultural Carnivalesque “Turning the Tables: Humor and the Reframing of Power.” Nobuko Anan (University of California at Los Angeles), Chair Victoria Stanham (Montevideo Players Society) “Carnival without End: Negotiating Subjectivity in “Woman in Distress: A Showcase of Monologues, Songs and ‘Emancipation of Women.’” Dance.” Xiao Che (University of California, Santa Barbara) Kelly Howe (University of Texas at Austin) “Witness Against History: Performing Insanity in ‘The Nirvana “The Intelligent Design Variety Hour: Sarah Myers’ ‘God of the of Granpa Doggie.’” Gaps’ as Feminist Historiographical Comedy.” Jennifer Popple (University of Colorado at Boulder) Anneliese Euler (Naropa University) “The Spaces Between: Early American Vaudeville and the “Comic Feminist Cabaret: Multiple Identities, Multiple Risks.” Construction of the ‘New Woman.’” Saturday, July 28, 2007 11:30 am - 1:00 pm 8:30 - 10:00 am Fan-tastic Inventions “I Got Apocalypse Survival Skills” Carrie Sandahl (Florida State University), Chair Arden Thomas (Stanford University), Session Co-ordinator Kristen Leahy (University of Texas at Austin) “’The Apocalypse, or the Katrina Boogie:’The Landscape of “American Girl Revue: The Consumerism of Survival in Plays by Yvette Sirker.” Patriotism.” Yvette Sirker (ZHoux ZHoux Theater Company, New Orleans) Jennifer L. Parker (Florida State University) “Performing Monologues from Pink Collar Crime.’” “Xena and Me: Theater by Fans, for Fans.” Theresa May (University of Oregon) Michelle Dvoskin (University of Texas at Austin) “In the Wake of Katrina: Practicing a Dangerous Ecocriticism.” “’I Hate Musicals, But..:’Fan Engagement with the Musical Sarah Standing Episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayers and Xena: Warrior “The Yes Men: Critiquing Media Narcosis and the Politics of Princess.” Rebuilding New Orleans.”
11:30 - 1:00 pm 10:15 - 11:45 am MD Panel: Performing Identity in Contemporary Social Dance Women and Theatre Program Debut Panel Mary Karen Dahl (Florida State University), Chair Erica Stevens Abbitt, Session Co-ordinator J. Ellen Gainor (Cornell University), Session Coordinator Connie Rapoo (University of Los Angeles at California) “’But Who Leads?’ Same-Sex Ballroom Dance and the “African Mamas and Warriors: Interrogating Female Heteronormative Paradigm.” Subjectivity in Botswana.” Clare Croft (University of Texas) Radhica Ganapathy (Texas Tech University) “Whose Body Can Lie?: Understanding Shakira’s ‘My Hips “(R)Evolutionary Path of Women’s Autobiographical Crisis Don’t Lie’as a Choreography of Strategic Essentialism.” Narratives.” Carrie Stern (independent scholar) Kimi D. Johnson (Florida State University) “Hairspray,” Whiteness, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: How Rock Dance “The Reign of Wazobia: The Intersection of Post-Colonial Became White.” Reconstruction and Contemporary Feminist Thought in Joanna Bosse (Bowdoin College) Conventional Igbo Society.” “Dance in Hollywood Film: Class, Race, and Narratives of Sarah Myers (University of Texas at Austin) Transformation.” “A New Feminist Collective: Difference and the Performance of Sexual Identity in Rude Mechanicals’ Grrl Action.”
12:30 - 2:00 pm
WTP MEMBER NEWS
WTP MEMBERS: CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
WTP invites nominations (self-nomination is certainly welcome) for the following Executive Council positions that will open this summer:
Member-at-Large Associate Editor of the Newsletter (desktop publishing skills highly desirable) Activist Member-at-Large ATHE Conference Coordinator
Should you have interest in nominating yourself or someone else for one of these positions and would like to know more about what each job entails, see the Executive Council list for contact information for those currently serving. Elections will be held at the WTP Conference (the “preconference”) this summer in New Orleans; nominations may be sent to WTP President, Sara Warner at [email protected]
Natka Bianchini successfully defended her dissertation: “Exactly as Domnica Radulescu received a Fulbright to lecture on theater and you Envisioned: Alan Schneider’s direction of Samuel Beckett” and will gender in Romania and to pursue a research project called Women’s receive her doctorate in drama from Tufts University in May. She looks Voices in Romanian Contemporary Theater. More information about the forward to seeing and meeting many of you in New Orleans in July! grant and the project is at this address: http://news.wlu.edu/news/page/normal/1681.html
Jill Dolan’s blog, “The Feminist Spectator,” ruminates on theatre, performance, film, and television, focusing on gender, sexuality, race, Joan Schirle, of Dell’Arte International, has been awarded a Fox other identities and overlaps, and our common humanity. It addresses Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship, in the Distinguished Achievement how the arts shape and reflect our lives; how they participate in civic category, for professional development. The program is designed to conversations; and how they serve as a vehicle for social change and a support an individual actor’s professional and artistic development, to platform for pleasure. Updated at least twice a month, the blog can be enrich relationships with the not-for-profit theatre and ensure continued accessed at: http://www.feministspectator.blogspot.com professional commitment to live theatre. The recipients will serve a four- month residency with their host not-for-profit theatre company. Dell’Arte International, in Blue Lake California, is a thirty-year old, internationally Rebecca Nesvet’s play, The Girl in The Iron Mask, written for and recognized touring ensemble and school, of which she is a co-founder. produced by Babes with Blades, Chicago’s theatre “company of women Her Fox Fellowship work will primarily focus on vocal training. She wielding weapons,” was presented March 12 – April 15 at the Raven will study in France with members of the Roy Hart Theatre, at the Theater Complex’s West Theater in Chicago. The show got a rave Banff Center with Richard Armstrong and in New York with Catherine review from the Chicago Sun-Times: “excellent storytelling”; “feisty” Fitzmaurice and others. Upon completion of her studies, she will acting” and “dangerous swordplay.” (The Girl in the Iron Mask might be lead workshops with Dell’Arte company members. Dell’Arte has also of interest to anyone at a women’s college—it has roles for more than committed to develop one of two projects which will feature Ms. Shirle. ten women, in an all-female cast, and most roles involve stage combat. ) For the full press release on this marvelous award, see: The following is a link to the full review: http://www.suntimes.com/ http://www.tcg.org/about/press/release.cfm?rel=48 entertainment/stage/295439,CST-FTR-mask14.article
Two of Rebecca’s other full-length plays are also receiving productions Haiping Yan, following the publication of her Chinese Women Writers this year. The Speed of Light will be produced in Romania as part of the and the Feminist Imagination, 1905-1948, from Routledge, a book that 2007 Sibfest International Theatre Festival. As a winner of the Tisch offers a genealogy of Chinese women artists and writers central to the School of the Arts, NYU, Department of Dramatic Writing’s New Works imagination of the Chinese revolution, Yan, Professor of Critical Studies Festival competition, The Speed of Light also received a stage-reading at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television, has completed at Tisch on April 7. The Shape Shifter ran April 19 – May 6 at Thorny her new book manuscript in Chinese: Presence of the Spectator in an Theater, Palm Springs, CA’s resident LGBT-dedicated theater. Era of Globalization, forthcoming with Shanghai, East China Normal University Press. She will be on leave from UCLA for the 2007-2008 Pricilla Page served as producer/dramaturg with Monarch Theater in academic year, to be Norman Freehling Professor at the Institution New York on a workshop production of Pelaje by Migdalia Cruz that was for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, completing her two presented at Ateneo Puertorigueno in San Juan, Puerto Rico April 27-29. book projects on transnational performance studies and contemporary Chinese cultural history, both contracted with the University of Michigan Press.
WTP MEMBER NEWS
NEWS FROM THE ARTIST MEMBER-AT- LARGE Cardinal Ritter Senior Services provides services to improve the quality of life for senior adults by promoting and providing social, health, and By Joan Lipkin housing programs and services in St. Louis City and County, as well as That Uppity Theatre Company Partners with the in St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin and Warren Counties. Alzheimer’s Association to Teach Theatre We conducted theatre classes for six months, working with a group of around 15 people. Activities included icebreakers, theatre games, When I tell people that, among recent projects, we have been making singing, dancing, movement, improvisation and conversation. theatre and creating performance with people with early stage dementia and Alzheimer’s, they often express disbelief Some ask how we can do Mike, a former high school drama teacher said, “Everyone should see performances if most of the actors can’t memorize lines or blocking. us. People think that we are just waiting to die but we’re not. We can still have fun and do interesting things.” I usually widen the conversation by explaining that I see performance When asked how she felt about the class, Rosemary, a former clerical as a series of consciously selected moments for a given public. Under worker started to cry. “I really like to come here, “she said. “It’s different that definition, people with Alzheimer’s can, indeed, make theatre and than being at home. Everyone is so nice and we laugh and have a good have a very good time doing it. time.”
We call our group the Think Tank Players and performed in April for the annual Alzheimer’s Association Volunteer Appreciation dinner in St. Louis for an appreciative audience of several hundred people. Our performance consisted of dancing into the room to Sly and the Stone’s “Everyday People,” welcoming n the audience to sing a round with us, staging a mock Cardinals baseball game in which a woman player hit a home run and a rousing and choreographed version of a favorite song. All of these pieces were work we developed and rehearsed in class.
I led the class, assisted by office staff and/or one or more of our interns from the Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. We maintain an active intern mentoring program in which graduate social work students learn about theatre, our techniques and how it can promote self esteem, stimulate creativity and both personal and collective agency with various populations. Photographer Marian Brickner has documented the experience for a traveling exhibit.
I think there is a real need for this kind of work. As the population of this country ages, the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease is increasing dramatically. A recent estimate suggests that one in eight people over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s and that almost half a million people 65 and younger have early-onset dementia. In addition to being fun and fostering community, our classes—among the first of their kind in the country—stimulate cognition in participants.
When it came to developing a theater class for people with early dementia, our skills and experience laid a solid foundation. Through our DisAbility Project , we have worked with people with a variety of cognitive abilities for over ten years. So we were delighted to partner with the Alzheimer’s Association in St. Louis and Cardinal Ritter Senior Services.
The Alzheimer’s Association was founded in 1980 and is the world Joan Lipkin is the Producing Artistic Director of That Uppity Theatre leader in Alzheimer research and support. The association offers Company in St. Louis. Recently, she received the Frederick H. Laas frontline support to individuals affected by Alzheimer’s with services Award from the Missouri Citizens for the Arts for her work to promote that include 24/7 information and referral hotlines, safety services, and arts education and arts advocacy for minorities, and the 2007 James. F. education and support groups. The St. Louis chapter serves more than Hornback Ethical Humanist of the Year Award. For more info, see www. 65,000 families in the 38-county service area of St. Louis metro, eastern uppityco.com or write [email protected] Missouri and western Illinois.
WHOM TO CONTACT FOR WHAT EXECUTIVE COUNCIL If you have questions about the Women And Theatre Program, here’s a list of people to contact. You can always contact the President, President Jane Chambers Coordinators Sara Warner, but it is often quicker and more efficient to go directly Sara Warner Pricilla Page to the person who is responsible for your particular concern. NOTE: Cornell University UMass Amherst and The email address [email protected], from which the electronic [email protected] New World Theatre version of the newsletter is distributed, is exclusively an information [email protected] DISTRIBUTION address. In addition to the electronic newsletter, WTP Immediate Past President Executive Committee members distribute occasional information Lisa Merrill Maya Roth from that address, but members are asked NOT TO RESPOND OR Hofstra University Georgetown University SEND MESSAGES to [email protected]. WE DO NOT CHECK THE [email protected] [email protected] ADDRESS FOR MESSAGES. If you need information, contact the appropriate person as listed below (all email addresses appear on the Vice President of Outreach and Jane Chambers Student Division Executive Council list opposite this column). Development Coordinator Stephanie Batiste Jen-Scott Mobley Questions about ATHE panels: contact the ATHE Conference Carnegie Mellon University CUNY Graduate Center Coordinator, Erica Stevens Abbitt. [email protected] [email protected]
Questions about the 2007 WTP conference: contact the Vice President Vice President of Pre-Conference Members-at-Large of Pre-Conference Programming, Ashley Lucas. Planning Ashley Lucas Jean Young If you are a graduate student: contact the Graduate Student UNC Chapel Hill Cornell University Representative, Julie Voigt. [email protected] [email protected]
Questions regarding the Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Treasurer Jisha Menon Competition: contact the Coordinator, Jen-Scott Mobley. Aileen Hendricks University of British Columbia Southern University [email protected] Issues you would like WTP to address in its structure or focus: contact [email protected] any or all of the members-at-large, Jean Young, Jisha Menon, Robin Robin Bernstein Bernstein; you may also contact the Activist Member-at-Large, Susan ATHE Conference Coordinator Harvard University Pastika, or Artist Member-at-Large, Joan Lipkin. Erica Stevens Abbitt [email protected] University of Windsor For newsletter contributions or questions, contact Rose Malague. [email protected] Activist Member-at-Large Susan Pastika A reminder: You may also always check our website for up-to-date Graduate Student Representative UC Davis information: Julie Voigt [email protected] University of Wisconsin www.athe.org/wtp [email protected] Artist Member-at-Large Joan Lipkin, Artistic Director From the Newsletter Editor: Call for Associate Editor Technology Coordinator Uppity Theatre Company Laura Purcell Gates [email protected] During my first year as WTP Newsletter editor, I have endeavored to fill the University of Minnesota shoes of my two outstanding predecessors, Sally Shedd, editor, and Maya Roth, [email protected] associate editor. I would welcome a partner to serve as associate editor of the newsletter (see call for nomations). Working knowledge of the Adobe Creative Newsletter Editor Suite would be an incredible asset. Please feel free to contact me at any time with Rose Malague questions--I’ll look forward to hearing from you at: [email protected] University of Pennsylvania [email protected] A call for the fall newsletter will be sent to the WTP listserv in September.
Best wishes to everyone -- see you in July!
- Rose Malague
wtp Association for Theatre in Higher Education Women and Theatre Program