URGENT: WTP Executive Council Elections 2010-2012 Terms Coming to a Close: Candidate Submissions due July 16th In order to remain a relevant, thriving, and both academically and artistically engaged organization, WTP depends on the service of its members, specifically, the WTP Executive Council Members. These members actively pursue WTP’s goals of enabling feminist inquiry and providing opportunities for discussion between those who teach, perform, and theo- rize about feminism, theatre, and performance. WTP Executive Council positions are coming up for re-election in 2012 and we would love to have your input. Please consider running for office yourself or nominating a fellow member into one of these positions.
WTP Executive Council Positions up for Re-Election in 2012: (current officer listed after each title) Vice President of Pre-Conference Planning-Jen-Scott Mobley, [email protected] Vice President of Outreach and Development-Emily Klein, Birmingham-Southern College, [email protected] Treasurer-Aileen Hendricks, Southern University, [email protected] Graduate Student Rep-Heidi Schmidt, University of Colorado-Boulder, [email protected] Jane Chambers Coordinators-Priscilla Page, UMass Amherst & New World Theatre, [email protected], Maya Roth, Georgetown University, [email protected] Members-At-Large-Yasmine Beverly Rana, The Looking Glass Theatre, [email protected], Domnica Radulescu, Washington and Lee University, [email protected], Rose Malague, University of Pennsylva- nia, [email protected] ATHE Conference Planner--Nicole (Nikki) Eschen, University of California Los Angeles, [email protected] Newsletter Editor-Summer Neilson Moshy, [email protected] Assistant Newsletter Editor-Lindsay Cummings, Cornell University, [email protected]
We are actively working to revamp our Executive Council voting procedure in an effort to include as many WTP members in the process as possible. To that end, this year, we will begin the transition by taking nominations via email, while the actual elections will still take place at the 2012 pre-conference in Washington, D.C. (NOTE: We are currently working on implementing an electronic voting process and hope to have it in place for 2013.) If you would like to nominate someone or run for one of these offices yourself, please email BOTH Jen-Scott Mobley at [email protected] and Cici Aragon at [email protected], no later than July 16th in order that we may announce the candidates prior to the pre-con. For more information about a particular position’s specific responsibili- ties, time commitment, etc. please contact the current officer (listed after their respective executive titles).
NOTE: We are desperately trying to track down the WTP by-laws that contain the official executive committee duties. If you have a copy of these documents, please contact: CiCi Aragon at [email protected] and Jen-Scott Mobley at jen- [email protected]. Thank you!
WTP 2012 Pre-Conference Schedule
Staging Dissent, Performing Patriotism: Feminist Engagement in Social/Civic Dialogues August 1, 9:00 am-10:00 pm The Davis Center, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
8:30-9:00 REGISTRATION
9:00-10:15 Concurrent Session I GRADUATE STUDENT PANEL PANEL:“Valuing Student Experience: Micro Interventions & Advocacy for Non-Traditional Female Students”
10:15-11:30 Concurrent Session II PANEL: “Legitimization, Legitimacy, and the Illegitimate: Female Writers Throughout the History of American Musical Theatre” PERFORMANCE PANEL: “Vaginas, Activism, and the New Female Symbolic Order”
11:30-12:45 STAGED READING: Agnes’ Baby by Olivia Briggs; Student Jane Chambers Contest Winner in the Devine Studio Theatre** (page 8)
12:45-1:30 LUNCH BREAK in the Lobby
1:30-2:45 Concurrent Session III CO-PERFORMANCE/PANEL: Sticks & Stones: Sluts Talk Back; and Changing Skins: Folktales about Gender, Identity & Humanity** (page 5) PANEL: History Matters Roundtable
2:45-4:00 Concurrent Session IV PANEL: “Raising Our Voices: Women-Led International Cross-Cultural Performance Initiatives”** (page 7) PANEL: “Celebrating Feminist/Activist Legacies: Performing Political Engagement”
4:00-5:15 PERFORMANCE: Violeta Luna: NK 603: Action for Performer and e-Maiz** (page 6)
5:15-6:15 WTP AWARDS and KEYNOTE ADDRESS in the Gonda Theatre (page 4) Keynote Address by Gay Gibson Cima: “Performing the Real State of Emergency” LFG “State of the Field” Roundtable
6:15-7:30 DINNER BREAK in the Lobby
7:30-9:00 HISTORY MATTERS READING** (page 3)
9:00-10:00 RECEPTION in the Lobby **Featured in this edition of The Newsletter on noted page. 2
2012 Pre-Con Features
HISTORY MATTERS/BACK TO THE FUTURE in association with ATHE Women and Theatre Program and the Davis Performing Arts Center presents
Scenes by Historic Women Playwrights: Read by Luminaries of the Stage
Featuring: Kathleen Chalfant (Wit, Angels in America, Talking Heads) Mary Beth Peil (Follies, Women on the Verge, Nine, “The Good Wife”), and Tamara Tunie (Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington, “Law In Order SVU”, “24”)
Wednesday, August 1 at 7:30 pm Directed by Joan Vail Thorne
Davis Performing Arts Center, Gonda Theatre Free First come, first seated
Performances will include scenes and/or monologues from selected plays by celebrated women writers including: GOODBYE MY FANCY (1947) by Fay Kanin; PLUMES (1927) by Georgia Douglas Johnson; SO HELP ME GOD (1936) by Maurine Watkins; TROUBLE IN MIND (1955) by Alice Childress; IN THE SUMMER HOUSE (1953) by Jane Bowles; RACHEL (1916) by Angelina W. Grimke; THE LITTLE FOXES (1939) by Lillian Hellman; THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING A WOMAN by Ra- chel Crothers; and THE OLD MAID (1934) by Zoe Akins, adapted from Edith Wharton. *If needed a scene may be read from HARVEY (1943) by Mary Chase.
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HISTORY MATTERS/BACK TO THE FUTURE promotes the study and production of women’s plays of the past in colleges, universities, and theatres throughout the country and encourages responses to those plays from contemporary women playwrights. WTP is thrilled to join in this initiative and shares the goals of promoting female playwrights and reducing the disparity in the number of men’s and women’s plays produced annually throughout the country.
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2012 Pre-Con Awards WTP to Honor Gay Gibson Cima and Aileen Hendricks The Women and Theatre Program is delighted to announce that we will be presenting awards to two of our valued colleagues and friends during our August 1st pre-conference at Georgetown University’s Davis Center. The 2012 WTP Award in Recognition of Exceptional Accomplishments and Scholarly Contributions in the Field of Women and Theatre will be presented to Gay Gibson Cima, and the WTP Lifetime Membership Award will be presented to Aileen Hendricks. Both Gay and Aileen have acknowledged the influence that WTP and its members have had on their careers, and it is our privilege to acknowledge them. The following are brief biographical sketches, highlighting some the special contributions for which each is being recognized. Gay Gibson Cima is a Professor of English and former Director of the Human Rights Initiative and Critical Race Theory Forum at Georgetown University. Her book Early American Women Critics: Performance, Religion, Race (Cam- bridge 2006) won the American Society for Theatre Research 2007 Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History. Cima has published widely on feminist performance history and critical race theory in many journals and anthologies; her work includes the influential essay, “Strategies for Subverting the Canon,” published in Upstaging Big Daddy (Michigan 1993). Gay is the also author of Performing Women: Female Characters, Male Playwrights, and the Modern Stage (Cornell 1993) and co-author of Theatre Studies in Higher Education: Learning for a Lifetime (ATHE 1996). Between 1978 and 2000, she produced and directed over 80 feminist plays at Georgetown. Cima joined the Wom- en and Theatre Program in 1975, the year after its founding. In 1992 she initiated the position of WTP Activist Facilitator; she has served as a Judge and then as a Chair for the Jane Chambers Playwriting Contest. Gay has also served in various leadership capacities for: ATHE at large, ASTR, the National Humanities Alliance, the National Task Force on the Preservation of the Primary Record, and the American Council of Learned Societies. WTP is pleased to recognize her ex- ceptional accomplishments and scholarly achievements this year. Aileen A. Hendricks a Professor of Theatre at Southern University—she is also the longest-serving officer in the history of the Women and Theatre Program, having held the position of Treasurer since 1999. Aileen joined WTP in 1984 and, in the thirty-two years since that time, has attended thirty of its conferences—likely making her the record-holder for conference attendance as well. Eight years ago, in the lead article of the WTP Newsletter, she posed the question, “Are Feminisms and WTP Obsolete?” Her answer was a resounding “No!”. Aileen credits WTP with influencing her artistic and scholarly pursuits, and with introducing her to the Black Theatre Network at a joint conference, an organization with which she has also had a decades-long affiliation. In her often-interconnected roles of teacher, director, writer, performer, scholar, and community activist, Aileen has participated in scores of productions exploring issues pertaining gender and race, and has frequently written on those subjects. She has been honored by numerous organizations for both her profes- sional work and service to the community, and has previously received the WTP Service Award. We are happy to recog- nize her with a Lifetime Membership Award. Gay Gibson Cima will deliver a keynote speech entitled, “Performing the Real State of Emergency,” at the Awards Ceremony which will begin at 5:15. We invite all to join us in honoring their contributions and accomplishments.
*WTP extends a special thank you to Rose Malague for her work on the Awards Committee.
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2012 Pre-Con Features Co-Performance/Panel Speaks To Feminist Concerns and LGBT Questions of Civil Rights and Civic Engagement With the hope of generating new engagements and interesting conversations, WTP paired up sen- ior/longstanding member of WTP (Artist Member-at-Large, Joan Lipkin) with a newer face to WTP (Milbre Burch). Lipkin will present/discuss her Sticks & Stones: Sluts Talk Back, while Burch will present/discuss her Changing Skins: Folktales about Gender, Identity & Humanity. About Sticks & Stones: Sluts Talk Back Long time theater artist, activist and WTP member Joan Lipkin will share excerpts and an overview of her exciting latest project, Sticks & Stones: Sluts Talk Back and will dis- cuss possible models for implementation in other communities and institutions. Recently named the Arts & Education Council's 2012 Arts Innovator of the Year, she conceived Sticks & Stones as a flexible collective of women and men to respond creatively to the esca- lating war on women. Across the political spectrum, there has been a rise in defamatory lan- guage against women, as well as an increased introduction in legislation policing women's rights to privacy and health care. According to Lipkin, “We are elected officials, performers, writers, musicians, activists, and social service administrators who believe it is time to say, Joan Lipkin 'STOP! to the recent rush of misogyny.” In other recent projects this year, Lipkin co-produced Briefs, St Louis's first festival of LGBT plays, spent a month as the guest artist in residence for the new Mosaic Theatre Company at Auburn University in Alabama teaching and developing a theater piece. In August, she will return to Yale University to develop and direct Kaleidoscope, an origi- nal piece about diversity on campus featuring upper classmen. For more on Lipkin’s work, see www.uppityco.com
About Changing Skins: Folktales about Gender, Identity & Humanity An award-winning, internationally known performer and recording artist, as well as monologist, playwright and teacher of her craft, Milbre Burch is a storyteller in every sense of the word. Bridging the mythic and the personal, Burch creates original works that bring the power of story into contemporary work of power and grace. Burch premiered Changing Skins: Folktales about Gender, Identity and Hu- manity, exploring the wealth and persistence of gender-bending images in folk tales and folk practice around the world, in June, 2010 at Columbia College. Since then it has toured to Atlanta, Austin and Nashville, Dixon Place in New York City and to Milbre Burch SUNY-Binghamton and SUNY-Plattsburgh. Drawing on science, scholarship and sto- ry—Changing Skins is intended to widen the range of possibilities for "happily ever after." Changing Skins draws from a pastiche of oral tradition stories including: creation stories highlighting the ambigu- ous nature of gender roles and identities; a tale of a young woman who shuns her suitors because she has fallen in love with the moon; folktales of female-to-male and male-to-female transformation; interspecies family units; a boy who gives birth, and the tale of a Djinn and a Princess who trade anatomical parts. According to Milbre, "Our bodies are the land- scapes in which we live. The culture of our birth embroiders its rules upon that embodied landscape. The stories that the culture offers us are meant to teach us how to be human in the particular ways that culture knows how. The stories we find for ourselves may reinforce or subvert the rules by which we are expected to live. These stories are as old as humanity and as new as yesterday's gossip." For more on Burch’s work see www.kindcrone.com.
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2012 Pre-Con Features Violeta Luna to Perform NK 603: Action for Performer and e-Maíz at WTP Pre-Con
Violeta Luna in NK 603: Action for Performer and e-Maíz PHOTO: Julio Pantoja, from hemi.nyu.edu
About NK 603: Action for Performer and e-Maíz: This performance work has been conceived as a reflection on the development of genetically engineered corn, and its devastating consequences on life. For Mexicans and many other Latin Americans, maíz nurtures the body, and also the soul, as native sacred texts tell the story of how our first people were made out of maize. As such, it plays a symbolic role in rituals, and it is also one of our key traditional food sources, from the American Southwest, to Patagonia. NK 603 is the name of one of the many genetically modified corn seeds available in the market. —Violeta Luna About Violeta Luna: Violeta Luna is a renowned performance artist and actress who has toured her work and taught workshops exten- sively throughout Latin America, the United States, and Europe. Working within a multidimensional space that allows for the crossing of aesthetic and conceptual borders, she uses her body as a territory to question and comment on social and political phenomena. Born in Mexico City, Luna obtained her graduate degree in Acting from the Centro Universitario de Teatro, UNAM and La Casa del Teatro. She works in community-based projects in Mexico and with incarcerated and re- cently arrived immigrant women in San Francisco. Since 1998, Violeta has been as associate artist of La Pocha Nostra, the interdisciplinary collective under the direction of Guillermo Gomez-Peña. She is also the associate director of El Teatro Jornalero, a theatre company that brings the voice of Latin American immigrant workers to the stage. Her current work explores the relationship between theatre, performance, and community engagement.
Thank you to Latino/a Focus Group Rep, Jimmy Noriega, for spearheading this performance collaboration, as well as for providing the above information on Violeta Luna for The Newsletter.
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2012 Pre-Con Features Raising Our Voices: Woman-led International Cross-Cultural Performance Initiatives How can creative, intergenerational, cross-cultural, collaborative performance art initiatives led by women engender peace initiatives differ- ently than mainstream political processes? In this exciting panel, three American women from different backgrounds will show you their praxis! Coming from different organizing frameworks, including International Di- plomacy, Feminist Solidarity, and Experimental Collaborative Theatre, the presenters will give direct examples of how women can be empowered by performance. Performance and theatre artist Tavia La Follette will present her “Firefly Tunnels” project, a real and virtual network of experimental artists from Egypt and the US. Through international workshops, exhibitions, and on line collaboration, the vision of a cooperative performance art lab that uses arts & symbolic communication to build a shared language of peace, is realized. Cynthia P. Schneider, an expert in cultural diplomacy, will discuss the wide-reaching impact of a program introduced by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the ShareTheMic organization featuring an American- Idol style Image from "Firefly Tunnels" workshop in Egypt contest “Sing Egyptian Women”. She will assess whether and how the PHOTO: Susanne Slavick contest achieved its goal of empowering Egyptian women, and raising their voices in the post-revolutionary period, when women have all but disappeared from Egyptian politics. Multi-media artist and activist Hyla Willis will present the process and re- sults of a collaborative workshop in Skopje, Macedonia, with an interdisciplinary group of scholars, artists, activists. Combining basic research, personal and family stories with performance art exercises, the group created a tourist-like map to make visible the “hidden feminist histories” of the city, which included historic and pre- sent-day realities and concerns experienced by women of different ages and ethnic and religious backgrounds.
"Gestation" workshop in Macedonia PHOTO: subRosa 7
2012 Pre-Con Features Olivia Briggs’s Agnes’ Baby wins 2012 Chambers Student Playwriting Contest In the same manner as previous Pre-Cons, the 2012 Pre-Con will include a staged reading of this year’s Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Contest winning play. Agnes’ Baby by Olivia Briggs explores issues of sex trafficking, politics, and privilege through the relationship between a congresswoman, Agnes, and a Korean prostitute working under the name Baby. Agnes attempts to control their relationship and maintain her public image while her colleagues and con- stituents work to control her, reining in any behavior falling outside the party line. Through these compelling characters, the play confronts issues concerning the (un)comfortable boundaries delineating nationality and privilege, the personal and the political, as well as love and power. Olivia Briggs received her B.A. in theatre from Oberlin College and is currently an M.F.A. candidate in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch Asia in Singa- pore. For the past six years, Olivia has served as the resident director of Shake- speare in the Valley, an annual teen Shakespeare workshop and performance or- ganized by The West Kortright Centre. Virginia’s Panglossian Productions thea- tre company produced Briggs’s short play “Expecting Lila” in 2012. WTP Jane Chambers Student Coordinator, Bethany Wood, will direct the staged reading, which will take place from 11:30-12:45 at the WTP Pre-Con in the Devine Studio Theatre. The playwright will be in attendance. Olivia Briggs
WTP Membership & Conference Registration
Membership Dues/Conference Registration 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 letters from the WTP President, WTP member features, reports on the Jane Cham- bers competition, ATHE conference news, and programming for WTP conferences. Please support WTP by joining our organization or renewing your membership via our patron pay pal link: http://www.athe.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=166. For more information visit our new web address: http://www.athe.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=135.
THANK YOU! WTP would like to extend a BIG shout out to Georgetown University, The Davis Performing Arts Center, Maya Roth (Director, Theatre & Performance Studies), Derek Goldman (Artistic Director of The Davis Center), Susan Hougen (Academic and Office Coordinator), and Laura Mertens (Public Relations & Special Events Manager). WTP thanks you immensely for your support and hospitality during the planning and enjoyment of our annual conference.
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WTP Contact Information WTP Executive Council 2010-12 President-Cecilia J. Aragon, University of Wyoming, [email protected] Vice President and Vice President of Pre-Conference Planning-Jen-Scott Mobley, [email protected] Immediate Past President-Ashley Lucas, UNC Chapel Hill, [email protected] Vice President of Outreach and Development-Emily Klein, Birmingham-Southern College, [email protected] Treasurer-Aileen Hendricks, Southern University, [email protected] ATHE Conference Coordinator-Nicole (Nikki) Eschen, University of California Los Angeles, [email protected] Graduate Student Rep-Heidi Schmidt, University of Colorado-Boulder, [email protected] Jane Chambers Coordinators-Priscilla Page, UMass Amherst & New World Theatre, [email protected], Maya Roth, Georgetown University, [email protected] Jane Chambers Student Coordinator-Bethany Wood, University of Wisconsin, Madison, [email protected] Members-At-Large-Yasmine Beverly Rana, The Looking Glass Theatre, [email protected], Domnica Radulescu, Washington and Lee University, [email protected], Rose Malague-University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Activist Member-at-Large-Norma Bowles, Fringe Benefits, [email protected] Artist Member-at-Large-Joan Lipkin, Artistic Director, That Uppity Theatre Co., [email protected] Newsletter Editor-Summer Neilson Moshy, [email protected] Assistant Newsletter Editor-Lindsay Cummings, Cornell University, [email protected] WTP General Information
We’ve Moved! New WTP Web Address. For all WTP news and info, please visit our new web address: http://www.athe.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=135 You can also navigate to our new website under ATHE’s newly developed web resources. Go to www.athe.org, select focus groups, and scroll down to click on WTP which will bring you to our main page. Hit the link that says “Visit Wom- en and Theatre Website” for more information on conferences, Jane Chambers, and how to donate.
Need to Circulate Info? Remember, any WTP member can post to our listserv by emailing [email protected]
About Us The Women and Theatre Program is a self-incorporated division of the Association for Theatre in High- er Education (ATHE) that began in 1974. At that time, the goal was to bring professional theatre women togeth- er with women in academia. In the years since its inception, WTP has sponsored panels and activities at ATHE’s annual conference. In 1980, WTP began holding its own annual conference. WTP conferences feature panels, informal discussions, workshops, and performances as a means to foster both research and the produc- tion of feminist theatre activities. WTP conference topics have included the intersection of theory and perfor- mance, multicultural theatre, lesbian theory and theatre, and many related aspects of feminist inquiry. (Contd. on next page.) 9
About Us (Contd.) In addition to its conference activity, WTP, in collaboration with ATHE, sponsors the Jane Chambers Playwrit- ing Award. This award is one of the few nationally recognized competitions for women playwrights and attracts over 200 submissions annually. The award-winning play is given a reading at 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 Student Playwriting Award, and the winner is given a staged reading at our annual con- ference. The continuing goal of WTP is to enable feminist inquiry and to provide opportunities for discussion between those who teach, perform, and theorize about feminism, theatre, and performance.
From the Editors At its center, we believe the WTP Newsletter not only serves to disseminate WTP member and program infor- mation, but to provide a sense of community and connectivity amongst WTP members. Join us in this mission by submitting any of the following for our next WTP Newsletter: Past President’s Column (did you serve as WTP President? Tell us about your experience!) WTP Member Feature Column (this article highlights a WTP member’s recent or forthcoming project) WTP News and/or Opportunities (including brief publications announcements, summaries of artistic projects, or calls for collaborators/artists) Pictures of WTP happenings (including Pre-Con pics) Articles on Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award Contest and/or updates on past winners Any Article addressing issues/ideas relevant or of service to WTP members.
If you are interested in submitting any of above items or any other item that we did not list but that you feel would be of interest to the WTP community, send us an email at the addresses below. We also welcome any WTP Newsletter related questions, comments, suggestions, or letters to the editors.
We’d love to hear from you!
Submissions for the next WTP Newsletter (Fall, 2012) due by September 30, 2012.
Summer Neilson Moshy, Newsletter Editor, [email protected] Lindsay Cummings, Assistant Newsletter Editor, [email protected]
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